(Ottoman Empire and It's Heritage) Duygu Köksal-A Social History of Late Ottoman Women-BRILL (2013)

A Social History of Late Ottoman Women
The Ottoman Empire

and its Heritage
Politics, Society and Economy
Edited by
Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil nalck and Boa Ergene

Advisory Board
fikret adanir antonis anastasopoulos idris bostan

palmira brummett amnon cohen jane hathaway
klaus kreiser hans georg majer ahmet yaar ocak
abdeljelil temimi gilles veinstein
VOLUME 54
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/oeh
A Social History of Late

Ottoman Women
New Perspectives
Edited by
Duygu Kksal and Anastasia Falierou
LEIDEN BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: painting by Fausto Zonaro Mafalda on the Dolmabahe Coast, Berrak-Nezih
Barut Collection (2007 Antik A.. Archive)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A social history of late Ottoman women : new perspectives / edited by Duygu Kksal and
Anastasia Falierou.
pages cm. (The Ottoman empire and its heritage, ISSN 1380-6076 ; volume 54)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22516-9 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-90-04-25525-8 (e-book)
1.WomenTurkeyHistory19th century.2.WomenTurkeyHistory20th century.
3.TurkeyHistoryOttoman Empire, 12881918.I.Kksal, Duygu.II.Falierou, Anastasia.
HQ1726.7.S63 2013
305.40956109034dc23
2013036745
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To all the Women who Inspired Us...
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments..........................................................................................
List of Figures and Tables............................................................................
List of Abbreviations......................................................................................
xi
xiii
xv
Introduction: Historiography of Late Ottoman Women....................

Part One
Women as Economic Actors:

Class, Work, and Social Issues
1. Theater as Career for Ottoman Armenian Women, 1850 to 1910.....
Hasmik Khalapyan
31
2. Searching for Womens Agency in the Tobacco Workshops:

Female Tobacco Workers of the Province of Selanik.....................
E. Tutku Vardal
47
3. Working from Home: Division of Labor among Female Workers

of Feshane in Late Nineteenth-Century Istanbul............................
M. Erdem Kabaday
65
Part Two
Education for Life: Schools, Associations,

and Curricula
4. The Limits of Feminism in Muslim-Turkish Women Writers
of the Armistice Period (19181923).....................................................
Elif kbal Mahir Metinsoy
85
5. Between Two Worlds: Education and Acculturation of Ottoman

Jewish Women............................................................................................ 109
Rachel Simon
viii
contents
6. Girls Institutes and the Rearrangement of the Public and the

Private Spheres in Turkey.............................................................. 133
Elif Ekin Akit
Part Three
Creating New Lives, Pushing the Boundaries:

Female Ottoman Artists
7. Painting the Late Ottoman Woman: Portrait(s) of Mihri
Mfik Hanm........................................................................................... 155
Burcu Pelvanolu
8. The New Woman in Erotic Popular Literature of 1920s
Istanbul................................................................................................. 173
Fatma Tre
Part Four
Womanhood in Print Culture

9. Enlightened Mothers and Scientific Housewives: Discussing
Womens Social Roles in Eurydice (Evridiki) (18701873)...... 201
Anastasia Falierou
10. An Almanac for Ottoman Women: Notes on Ebzziya Tevfiks
Takvmn-nis (1317/1899)............................................................. 225
zgr Tresay
11. Womens Representations in Ottoman Cartoons and the
Satirical Press on the Eve of the Kemalist Reforms (19191924).249
Franois Georgeon
Part Five
Dilemmas of Nationalism: Debating Modernity,

Identity, and Womens Agency
12. From a Critique of the Orient to a Critique of Modernity: A
Greek-Ottoman-American Writer, Demetra Vaka (18771946).281
Duygu Kksal
contents
ix
13. The Tomboy and the Aristocrat: Nabawiyya Ms and

Malak Hifn Nsif, Pioneers of Egyptian Feminism............... 297
Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen
14. Hayriye Melek (Hun), a Circassian Ottoman Writer between
Feminism and Nationalism........................................................... 317
Alexandre Toumarkine
Notes on Contributors................................................................................... 339
Index................................................................................................................... 345
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This collective volume has benefited from the contributions of a number
of people and institutions. The idea emerged from a conference in April
2006 in Istanbul, entitled Women in the Arts and Writing: Negotiating
the Ottoman Public Sphere. The conference provided us a point of departure; in time we contacted a number of new scholars whose work would
contribute to the overall purpose of the book.
We would first like to thank the two institutions who funded the initial conference and have also supported us during the preparation of
the manuscript; Boazii University and IFEA (Institut Franais dEtudes
Anatoliennes). A number of people at Boazii University and IFEA have
offered their help during the editing process. We received much needed
help in typing and organization from the assistants at Atatrk Institute
for Modern Turkish History at Boazii University. We are particularly
grateful to zgr Burak Grsoy, mmhan Ceren nl, Deniz Arzuk,
zlem Dilber, Selim zgen, Alpkan Birelma, and Ekin Mahmuzlu, along
with others whose names we may have left out. Our warm thanks to Tracy
Maria Lord-en for reading and commenting on the manuscript.
We also wish to thank our series editors at Brill Publishers and the
anonymous reviewers for their meticulous comments, which were invaluable for the improvement of the initial manuscript. Kathy van Vliet and
Franca de Kort at Brill have done a wonderful job of coordinating the
editing and publishing process and to them we would like to express our
warm thanks. Our copy editor Valerie Joy Turner, who has made the manuscript more readable, also deserves our thanks.
Lastly, we would like to thank our families, who stood by us during this
long and sometimes difficult project. It was with their love and encouragement that we were able to complete this book.
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures
1.1.Men and women tobacco workers of different communities
in the workshop of the Herzog Company in Kavala, Tobacco
Museum of Kavala (c1900)..........................................................
2.1.Payday at a handkerchief workshop at Urfa around 1900.........
2.2.Ethno-religious composition of female knitters assignments......
2.3.Ethno-religious composition of Feshanes male employees.....
3.1.On his knees, the man in this cartoon begs the woman to
demand anything she wants, as long as it is not political.
Diken 56 (3 June 1920), 8.............................................................
3.2.Kesmeli mi, Kesmemeli mi? (To cut or not to cut?) Resimli
Ay 4 (May 1924), 27.......................................................................
100
3.3.Balk Modalar, Resimli Ay 1 (February 1924), 32 [left];
Balk Modalar, Resimli Ay 2 (March 1924), 32 [right]...
3.4.The headgear style called rusba of Russian refugee women in
Istanbul was very popular among Turkish Muslim women.
Yeni Moda Hareketleri Etrafnda: araf Bal, Sa Modelleri,
Yeni nci 2 (July 1922): back cover...............................................
4.1.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Self-portrait: A Souvenir from
Istanbul to my Beloved Vecih, watercolor on paper,
12.5 8 cm. Private collection...................................................
4.2.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Her Sister Enise Hanm, pastel on
cardboard, 65 50.5 cm., Mimar Sinan Gzel Sanatlar
University Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum........
4.3.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Woman with Veil, watercolor on
paper, 44 29.5 cm. Private collection...................................
4.4.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Portrait of a Woman, oil on canvas,
98.5 61 cm., Mimar Sinan Gzel Sanatlar University Istanbul
Painting and Sculpture Museum...................................................
4.5.Osman Hamdi Bey, Mihrab, 1901, oil on canvas, 210 108 cm.
Private collection.................................................................................
5.1.Cover page of Binbir Buse....................................................................
54
70
75
76
93
101
103
158
158
163
163
165
180
181
182
xiv
list of figures and tables
5.4.Cover page of Binbir Buse.................................................................. 183

5.5.Cover page of Binbir Buse.................................................................. 184
6.1.First page of the periodical Eurydice, Volume 48, 1872.
Anastasia Falierous private collection.................................
204
6.2.Young girls learning to sew clothes in the Ladies Charitable
205
Society of Pera.............................................................................
6.3.Female workers in the ironing section established by the
Ladies Charitable Society of Pera.........................................
211
7.1.The woman of 1911............................................................................... 253
7.2.The woman of 1922.............................................................................. 254
7.3.What a lie!.............................................................................................. 257
7.4.The full moon and the waves........................................................... 258
7.5.In the tramway..................................................................................... 261
7.6.After the curtain was lifted in the ferries.................................. 261
7.7.If women were................................................................................... 263
7.8.Women in coffeehouses..................................................................... 265
7.9.A scene from social life...................................................................... 266
7.10.Heels and legs....................................................................................... 268
7.11.I cant wait for summer...................................................................... 269
7.12.The widow........................................................................................... 271
7.13.Hrriyet Abidesi (Monument to Freedom)................................. 272
Tables
2.1.Fezzes knitted for Feshane according to the knitting type
and religious affiliation of knitters for a period of
approximately six months in 187576...............................
2.2.Earnings of fez knitters......................................................................
77
78
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AIU Alliance Isralite Universelle
BCA Babakanlk Cumhuriyet AriviPrime Ministry Republican
Archives
BOA Babakanlk Osmanl AriviPrime Ministry Ottoman
Archives
DH. D Dahiliye Nezareti, dare EvrakMinistry of Internal Affairs,
Administrative Documents
DH. MKT Dahiliye Nezareti, Mektubi KalemiMinistry of Internal
Affairs, Chief Secretary
HR. TO Hariciye Nezareti, Tercme OdasMinistry of External
Affairs, Translation Office
HV Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden
Y.A. HUS Yldz, Sadaret, Hususi EvrakYldz, Prime Ministry, Private Documents
Y. PRK. ASK Yldz Perakende, AskeriYldz Retail Documents, Military
Affairs
Y. PRK. DH Yldz Perakende Evrak, DahiliyeYldz Retail Documents,
Interior Affairs
INTRODUCTION
Historiography of Late Ottoman Women

This volume aspires to bring together new and developing outlooks in
Ottoman womens studies as part of a new generation of scholarship on
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Signaling new theoretical tendencies, topic areas, and approaches in studies on late Ottoman
women, the chapters in this book will, we hope, contribute to debates
connecting work on women in Ottoman history to that on women in
other places and times. Undoubtedly, the studies here build upon and
are indebted to a remarkable body of literature on women in Ottoman,
Middle Eastern, and European societies. Inheriting from this corpus a
number of themes and approaches, the present chapters attempt to go
further afield, unearthing new sources, and extending the realm of discussion in research on late Ottoman and early Republican women.
Academic work on late Ottoman women deals with a certain number of inevitable themes. Much of the twentieth-century scholarship has
been dominated by the all-embracing context of Islam; the practices of
seclusion/segregation and veiling; institutions such as polygamy, extended
households, and the harem. In this tradition particularity and difference
from the West are typically emphasized, reducing late Ottoman society to
another representation of the East, albeit a less pure one. In this picture,
the Ottoman Empire is perceived as part of the Islamic world or Orient,
or the Middle East. Studies on the Empire also suffer from familiar prejudices afflicting Middle Eastern studies in general, driven as they are by an
emphasis on Islam as both belief system and way of life. These established
themes were, of course, situated within the larger paradigms of European
imperialism, Orientalism, westernization, and the rise of nationalism and
the nation state.
It is now widely accepted that scholarship on women in non-western
settings must take into consideration a long list of external and indigenous
factors that combine in varying ratios in local settings. For example, the
histories of non-western women cannot be understood without weighing the effects of both Western domination on local milieux and a wide
duygu kksal and anastasia falierou
range of subtle and not-so-subtle responses by local actors to this hegemonic pressure. Thus, studying Ottoman women of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries means locating them in the wider history
of the Empire, which was characterized by the loss of territories, contesting nationalisms, and deepening ties with world capitalism and European
states. Recent work testifies that investigation into the late Ottoman
Empire cannot afford to ignore European history. The challenge is not
simply that of writing the larger history of Europe, but rather factoring in
individual histories within the Ottoman geography as informed by co-eval
developments in Europe, the Middle East outside the Empire, and, where
relevant, other regions.
Being mindful of co-evalness1 or equivalance in terms of time
requires that we regard developments in the late Ottoman Empire (or anywhere) on that regions own terms; that is, as neither behind or belated
nor ahead or advanced with respect to other contexts. Co-evalness in
history demands that we study geographies related with each other in a
given time frame as co-temporal entities, sharing the same world historical environment. These geographies are part of a larger system of power
relations, by which they may be effected in different but related ways.
We have thus come to use terms like alternative modernities or nonwestern modernities in deference to the need for co-evalness in our
analyses of both past and present in non-western geographies.2 Social sciences and history scholarship have taken major steps in imagining and
conceptualizing modernity in non-western contexts; yet much remains
to be done in the area of approaching a contextthe ideas, acts, and
practices of a particular societyin its own time. The studies in this volume present late Ottoman and early republican women as figures in a
1It was Johannes Fabians important work which brought to our attention the concept
of co-evalness. Johannes Fabian, The Time of the Other (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1983). Co-evalness has been taken up by several other writers contemplating Western and non-Western modernities. See for example Arif Dirlik, Is there History after Eurocentrism? Globalism, Post-colonialism and the Disavowal of History, in Postmodernitys
Histories: The Past as Legacy and Project (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2000), 6389.
2For critical discussions of these concepts, see Harry Harootinian, Overcome by Modernity, History, War and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), especially the Preface; and Nadir zbek, Alternatif Tarih Tahayylleri:
Siyaset, deoloji ve Osmanl-Trkiye Tarihi, Toplum ve Bilim 98 (2003), 234254; Nadir
zbek, Modernite, Tarih ve deoloji: II. Abdulhamid Dnemi Tarihilii zerine Bir
Deerlendirme, Trkiye Aratrmalar Literatr Dergisi 2, no. 1 (2004), 7190.
introduction
co-temporal history with women of Western geographies, responding to

similar developments.
A fundamental question for historians relates to the ways in which
various actors in a given setting react to irritants or impediments in their
environment. We see, of course, that varying sets of ideas and practices
were offered as solutions to problems by different sectors or communities
of different periods in late Ottoman society. Problem-solving should be
understood in its widest sense here, as adaptive responses to the social,
economic, and political environment. In the non-Western setting of the
late empire, actors responses and proposed solutions to challenges in
their environments were most often inspired by ideas and practices from
the West, although we should remember that interpretations and assessments of the Western and capitalist way of life varied as well.
Resolutions to everyday challenges encountered by various groups or
individuals in non-western contexts display broad combinatory variation in elements from three fields of experience: 1) traditional beliefs and
practices; 2) the material demands of daily life; and 3) new ideas and
behaviors traveling across frontiers (in this case, mostly from Europe).
None of these fields can be frozen into a fixed or stable form, of course,
since they constantly interact and change over time. Maneuvering among
them, solutions to problems offered by the different actorsgroups and
individualscan be translated as politics in its most comprehensive,
perhaps existential, sense.
Politics in this overarching sense may, depending on the context, refer
to the politics of the state, of the ruling elite or majority; to the politics
of the dispossessed, of ruled masses or minority groups; and finally to
the everyday practices of various groups, movements, and individuals. Of
course, equating politics to various actors proposed solutions/responses
should not be understood as implying a rational choice approach where
every solution is equal as long as it is rational and interest-seeking. In
other words, a solutions-centered approach should not bring us to adopt
a relativist, apolitical theoretical stance. To the contrary, it is crucial to
keep an eye open for hegemonic, hierarchical, and oppressive relationships as well as for resistant oppositional, evasive, or anarchical forces if
we, as scholars, truly seek to penetrate the specific setting under analysis.
A solutions-oriented outlook on late Ottoman society need not and cannot stand neutral in the face of prejudices, injustice, or violence.
Such an outlook may enable us to keep a useful distance from the modernization/westernization paradigm in addition to opening the door to
the co-evalness perspective. Writing co-eval history in the context of late
Ottoman womens studies means bringing together questions raised by

Middle Eastern, European, or other relevant contexts (the Mediterranean,
the Balkans), and focusing on solutions, responses, or remedies devised
by the group, individual, or section of society under examination. In this
regard, it seems clear that historical studies need to show more sensitivity
to anthropological matters if they wish to operationalize the co-evalness
principle in their work. Late Ottoman womens studies, too, can be usefully motivated by an anthropological disposition, taking greater pains to
read the actors minds, circumstances, and responses in their own time.
Womens actions, positions, and practices need to be studied as everyday
solutions to problems created by material needs as well as by ideas, emotions, and beliefs.
Recent scholarship is apparently moving in this direction since it appears
to be increasingly mindful of the complex constellations of responses to different environments. As noted above, neither traditional beliefs and ideas
nor new ways introduced through contact with the West or Westernness
and the rise of capitalism exist in pure form. Late Ottoman womens studies, therefore, must ultimately pay closer attention to how Islam, patriarchal relationships, ethnic conflicts, capitalist and other relations of power
were actually being experienced at a certain moment in time. Visualizations of late Ottoman womens lives, in fact, offer snapshots of a solution
or a set of solutions by various actors to a perceived environment. Articles
in this book, too, can be read as offering a multitude of solutions, sometimes contesting one another, to the hardships, transformations, and tensions in womens lives. These everyday remedies or solutions might be
limited, marginal, or doomed to failure. Yet womens agency cannot be
unearthed without narrating how women were involved in shaping their
own and others lives, even in the most unexpected areas of their existence.
In this sense they do not simply reflect modernizing trends or westernizing attitudesor their defensive denial. They provide an array of local
responses where the local can never be found (and should never be conceptualized) in its initial, unchanged, or authentic state.
Recent studies on Middle Eastern and Ottoman women exhibit sensitivities and concerns similar to those noted above. This scholarship has
revitalized womens studies as a result of its re-working of major theoretical concepts which had dominated the field. It is through a determined
reconsideration of theoretical assumptions regarding Islam, the impact of
the West (modernization), and nationalism/nation building that recent
scholarship has opened new debates.
introduction
Re-locating Islam
Western scholarship is known to have perceived Islam, until late in the
twentieth century, as a belief system and way of life equated with the traditional in opposition to all that might be modern. Scholars of the Middle
East, for their part, have either identified with this picture or defensively
rejected it, seeking to show how, for example, Islam has not actually impeded
development and modernization. In womens studies, as well, the Islamic
framework has, as we noted, offered enticing themes such as the harem, the
polygamous and extended family, and patriarchal relations associated with
the seclusion/segregation of Muslim women.
A Middle Eastern Orient reduced to Islam and imagined largely by
means of rough and reductivist interpretations of these themes has
recently, however, been challenged by a post-Orientalist criticism. A literature mindful of the lived relations of power in a Muslim society, aware
of the various functions and utilities of traditional relations and power
networks among women, has slowly emerged.3 The harem has been
approached from new perspectives; for example, as an alternative site
of power from which womens involvement in household or community
politics can be clearly discerned,4 or as an alternative domestic space safeguarded from masculine intrusion.5 Seclusion and covering practices have
also been treated in novel ways; womens exercise of power and agency
are now seen as issues of self-actualization and a means of exerting influence rather than only as issues of seclusion, covering, or segregation.6
The new critical literature on nineteenth-century women has elements
in common with a number of historiographical works on the early modern
(pre-1839) Ottoman period. This schools point of departure was a new look
at Islamic law, courts, and legal texts, this time stressing both womens
formal rights and the opportunities and openings for womens exercise of
power in Muslim society. This literature goes beyond a re-assessment of
3Among these see Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1975); Leila Ahmed,
Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). Nilfer Gle, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, c1996).
4A groundbreaking work is that of Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
5See Billie Melman, Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 17181918.
Sexuality, Religion and Work (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992).
6Nilfer Gle, The Forbidden Modern.
formal Islamic precepts to highlight the varying nature of Islamic practices

and social worlds within which womens channels for empowerment are in
constant evolution.7 Outstanding examples include the works of Ronald C.
Jennings on women in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ottoman courts,
those of Leslie Peirce on women in the sixteenth-century Aintab court
records, and Suraiya Faroqhis work on consumption patterns, work, and
property relations of the early modern Ottoman period.8
Re-inscribing the West
Whether of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries or of today,
studying change in Middle Eastern societies has, by and large, involved
tracing the cumulative impact of the western world in this geography.
Close to Europe geographically, economically, and culturally, the Ottoman Empire interacted with it more intensively than it did with the rest
of the non-western world.
Analyzing the impact of Western societies on the Middle East and
Ottoman Empire has, thus, typically meant describing the influence of
key ideas, from scientific observations to philosophical convictions, in the
works of European intellectualsthe weighty influence of Western intellectual history in academic approaches to the non-Western world continues to the present day. In the Middle Eastern and Ottoman contexts this
has given rise to a literature of intellectual responses to or contemplations
7See the important works of Judith E. Tucker, In the House of the Law: Gender and
Islamic Law in Otoman Syria and Palestine (Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998)
and of Amira El Azhary Sonbol (ed.), Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996). For works emphasizing womens exercise of power within the patriarchal system, see Deniz Kandiyoti, Women, Islam and the
State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991); Kandiyoti, Islam and Patriarchy: A
Comparative Perspective, in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex
and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991),
2342; Kandiyoti (ed.), Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives (London and New
York: I.B.Tauris, 1996).
8Ronald C. Jennings, Studies on Ottoman Social History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries: Women, Zimmis and Sharia Courts in Kayseri, Cyprus and Trabzon (Istanbul: ISIS
Press, 1999); Leslie Peirce, Morality Tales, Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2003); Suraiya Faroqhi,
Womens Culture, in Subjects of the Sultan, Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire
(London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 101121, and Stories of Ottoman Men and Women,
Establishing Status, Establishing Control (Istanbul: Eren Yaynclk, 2002); Madeline C. Zilfi,
Muslim Women in the Early Modern Era, in The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 3: The
Later Ottoman Empire, 16031839, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 226255.
introduction
on this intellectual tradition by local elites. In recent work on Middle Eastern and late Ottoman intellectual history, attention is turning to more
complex characters, those capable of spanning intellectual and cultural
frontiers.9 Academics of the field are increasingly inclined to look beyond
the sphere of ideas toward that of everyday experience, of power relations
among groups and individuals including the non-intellectual.
A familiar mode of scholarship on European colonialism that presents a more or less one-dimensional exploitation of the Orient for economic and strategic reasons, has recently been refined in certain aspects.
While the hegemonic and disciplinary effects of Western colonialism are
acknowledged, lately more attention is being paid first to indigenous economic and social developments, and second to indigenous populations
collaboration and cooperation with, as well as resistance to, the colonial
regimes.10 A number of studies show that capitalist developments more
or less contemporary with those in Europe may be noted in some areas
of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, developments that actually preceded
Western colonial interference.11
The history of colonialism in the Middle East is no longer thought to
be that of a more or less one-way relationship between a hegemonic West
9Carter Findley, An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe: Ahmed Midhat Meets Madame

Gulnar, 1889, American Historical Review 103, no. 1 (1998), 1549; Mervat Hatem, Through
Each Others Eyes, The Impact on the Colonial Encounter of the Images of Egyptian,
Levantine-Egyptian, and European Women, 18621920, in Western Women and Imperialism, Complicity and Resistance, ed. Nupur Chauduri and Margaret Strobel (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 3558.
10For an important article discussing how the colonial enterprise interacts with the
colonized memory see Anne Norton, Ruling Memory, Political Theory 21 (1993), 453463.
It was the Subaltern Studies Project that initiated historiographical efforts to include the
voices of repressed groups and the complex set of relations that the subaltern invented to
deal with the colonial situation and other sources of exploitation. See Ranajit Guha, et al.
(eds.), Subaltern Studies, 9 vols. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 19821997); for a defense
of indigenous histories by the subaltern, see Arif Dirlik, The Past as Legacy and Project:
Postcolonial Criticism in the Perspective of Indigenous Historicism, Postmodernitys Histories, The Past as Legacy and Project (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 2000), 203228.
11evket Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism (18201913): Trade,
Investment and Production (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987);
evket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); alar Keyder, Port Cities and Politics on the Eve of the Great War, New
Perspectives on Turkey (Fall 1999); alar Keyder, Memalik-i Osmaniyeden Avrupa Birliine
(Istanbul: letiim, 2003); Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 17001922 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2000); Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters,
The Ottoman City between the East and the West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
and a passive, subordinated Orient. The colonizers hegemony is now

understood as refracted, fragmented and at times even circumvented
simply because the colonized is not a passive recipient but a willful
actor, opposing, evading, or collaborating with the colonizing or imperial forces. Apparently, many historical figures selected for treatment by
womens studies were fully aware of the Orientalist gaze on their lives,
social roles, and bodies. This may be the reason most of these women
either attempted to thwart Orientalist encroachments or were coopted by
it in varying degrees for various reasons. Reina Lewiss work explores, for
example, ways that late Ottoman women responded to Orientalist visions
and how, in their responses, they combined a critique of Islamic patriarchal relations with a critique of the Western imperialist project.12
Resistance, agency, or negotiation are womens various options for confronting the superiority of the Western powers of the period. It follows
that late Ottoman womens historiography cannot seriously be attempted
without noting womens overt or latent resistance to imperialism and
their various modes of accommodation with the Western imperialist
enterprise. Whether and how womens interface with the imperial/colonial project differed from that of men remains an open question.
Re-approaching the Nation State
Tightly interwoven with the modernization process in the Middle East,
as everywhere, is the rise of nationalism and the nation state. Accompanied by a familiar vocabulary of underdevelopment and belatedness
vis--vis European states, the transformation from empire to nation state
in the Middle East, a process that intensified around the mid-twentieth
century, was seen as a solution to backwardness, poverty, and feelings
of inferiority. Republican Turkey, an outcome of the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire, was held up as a model of this transformation, imbued
as it was with anti-imperialism but also with a radical modernizing ambition. Well into the second half of the twentieth century the nationits
formation and developmental stageswas without question the preeminent framework for both local and foreign scholars of Republican Turkey
or the wider Middle East. This may be because the nationalism paradigm
12Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).
introduction
may be accommodated in Marxist/developmentalist, Islamist, or a more

purely westernizing terminology.
Changes in the lives of women in the new nation states have, of
course, been explained as part of their struggle for and involvement in
the larger nationalist project. Hence it is no surprise that a preoccupation
with nationalism has largely shaped womens studies in the Middle Eastern and Ottoman context.13 Womens emancipation has thus frequently
been associated with the institutions, legislation, and changing ways of
life under the nation state, and the nationalist or patriotic agendas and
the activities of womens movements and feminism related to these have
received ample attention.14
Nationalism and the nation state continue to serve as significant
domains for womens historiography in the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. There is, however, a growing awareness of the need to
acknowledge the authoritarian, patriarchal, and disciplinary aspects of
nationalism, in addition to the need to recognize communal, minority,
or oppositional nationalisms in their relationship to womens lives. Several new questions have been usefully raised, and the focus has shifted
substantiallyfor example, older contentions about womens emancipation in the nation state context have been increasingly challenged. As
the nation state paradigm lost popularity as an explanatory model in the
social sciences, womens studies traditional reliance upon it became an
object of critical reflection.
Accordingly, studies concerned with women of the new Middle East
nation states or of Turkey have begun to turn away from a narrow focus
on the nationalist patriarchy or state feminismfeaturing the outstanding patriotic women who acted as representatives or embodiments
of the nationalist/modernization projectand toward the activities and
13Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith Tucker (eds.), Social History of Women and Gender
in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1999).
14Mervat F. Hatem, Ellen L. Fleischmann, and Deniz Kandiyoti have drawn attention
to the dominance of the nationalist narrative in studies of Middle Eastern women. See
Mervat Hatem, Modernization, the State, and the Family in Middle East Womens Studies, in Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, ed. Meriwether and
Tucker, 6387; Ellen L. Fleischmann, The Other Awakening: The Emergence of Womens
Movements in the Middle East, 19001940, in Social History of Women and Gender in the
Modern Middle East, ed. Meriwether and Tucker, 8913; Deniz Kandiyoti, Contemporary
Feminist Scholarship and Middle East Studies, in Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 1996), 127; Elizabeth B.
Frierson, Women in Late Ottoman Intellectual History, in The Late Ottoman Society Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth zdalga (London and New York: Routledge, 2005).
10
v isibility of common, ordinary women in their everyday lives. Womens

historiography of the region thus departed from its engagement with
the upper classes and elites (now more associated with the modernizing reforms) to concentrate on women of lower status, that is, working
women, middle-class housewives, servants, prostitutes, etc. Other groups
of women now receiving attention are minorities of various kinds, such as
those of ethnic or religious communities, or those expressing some form of
oppositional nationalism. Thus the focus on Turkophone Muslim women
of the Empire is shifting to make room for Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, or
Circassian women. In line with general trends in historiography, these
silenced or forgotten groups are now given a voice and even agency.15
Even with the opening of these new vistas, nationalism remains an axis
in reference to which newer questions are formulated. A recent contribution by Elisabeth Thompson investigates the strategies used by women
in their quest for full citizen status, whatever the nature of the regime in
which they find themselves; she stresses the complex ways in which
womens movements have cooperated with and/or disputed various
authorities, from a colonial administration and a nationalist project to
a labor movement, in two Arab societies.16 Thompsons insightful work
pays tribute to a new concern for greater detail on how womens agency
functions in specific historical contexts. Her analysis of the Syrian and
Lebanese contexts reveals how colonial enterprises, nation-building processes, and constellations of social movements each contribute to the
predicaments and opportunities for women and womens movements. As
Thompson suggests, it is not a question of discarding nationalism or the
nation state as analytical categories but of moderating what now appears
to be a disproportionate emphasis on them in research on late nineteenth
and early twentieth-century women.
Attention has turned to ways in which pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial (national) eras could be conceived as stages in a more extended
historical continuum along which to trace womens agency. This was the
aim of Serpil akrs important work on ordinary middle-class Ottoman
15Nicole van Os, Ottoman Womens Reaction to the Economic and Cultural Intrusion
of the West: The Quest for a National Dress, in Dissociation and Appropriation Responses
to Globalization in Asia and Africa, ed. Katja Fllberg-Stolberg, Petra Heidrich, and Ellinor
Schne (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1999), 291308; Elif Ekin Akit, Kzlarn
Sessizlii, Kz Enstitlerinin Uzun Tarihi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2005).
16Elisabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, c2000).
introduction
11
Muslim women active in print culture and associational activities,17 which

she sees as clearly part of the Ottoman womens movement. Likewise
a growing number of works draw attention to Ottoman womens associations, journals, and conferences.18 Thus the concept of an Ottoman
womens movement began to be operationalized in diverse contexts,
at once furnishing evidence of the concepts aptness and marking the
arrival of a new scholarship questioning the purely nationalist outlook
on womens emancipation.
The Public Sphere in Works on Late Ottoman Women
A womans participation in social spaces and opportunities outside the
home has typically been considered an indispensable indicator of her
degree of emancipation. Since Middle East and Muslim societies present
a clear line between the two spheres owing to the practice of the segregation of the sexes, analysis of womens emancipation in these societies is
often focused on how they struggle against traditional and Islamic precepts
with the goal of moving into the public sphere and a more secular world.
Here, too, recent works are challenging this simplistic and dichotomous
conceptualization as the public sphere in Islamic societies is being reassessed and reworked. A major article by Elisabeth Thompson discusses
the sizeable number of studies problematizing the reductionist, dualistic
scheme of gender boundaries in the Middle East.19 Two basic observations
have emerged to dominate the public/private sphere debate in regard to
non-Western societies:
17Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1996); Serpil akr,
Feminism and Feminist History-Writing in Turkey: The Discovery of Ottoman Feminism,
Aspasia 1 (2007), 6183.
18Nicole van Os, Ottoman Womens Organizations: Sources of the Past, Sources for the
Future, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 11, no. 3 (2000), 369383; Aynur Demirdirek
In Pursuit of the Ottoman Womens Movement, in Deconstructing Images of The Turkish
Woman, ed. Zehra Arat (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 6582; Aye Durakbaa, Halide
Edib, Trk Modernlemesi ve Feminizm (Istanbul: letiim, 2000); Ayfer Karakaya-Stump,
Debating Progress in a Serious Newspaper for Muslim Women: The Periodical Kadn of
the Post-Revolutionary Salonica, 19081909, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30,
no. 2 (2003), 155181. For a study drawing links between late Ottoman and the Republican
womens movement, see Yaprak Zihniolu, Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadnsz nklap, Kadnlar
Halk Frkas ve Kadn Birlii (Istanbul: letiim, Metis, 2003).
19Elisabeth Thompson, The Public and the Private in Middle Eastern Womens History, Journal of Womens History 15, no. 1 (2003), 5269; Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender
in Islam.
12
1. the private sphere is not as private as it earlier appeared, and

2. the public sphere is not as strictly delineated as had been thought.
The privacy of the private sphere has been shaken, to begin with, by a
number of studies unraveling the power relations implicated in the most
(so-called) intimate spaces such as the Oriental harem and the home.20
And the publicness of the public sphere is being re-negotiated, now that
it has become apparent that women in late Ottoman society could be
publicly involved, for example, in writingliterature, journal articles,
letterseven from the confinement of their homes; or by attending public conferences for women, schools, public baths, and shopping places;
or by engaging in charitable, philanthrophic, or patriotic activities and
associations.
As modes of publicness among womens economic activities, work and
consumption patterns draw special interest. The works of Suraiya Faroqhi,
Elizabeth Frierson, and Haris Exertzoglu have contributed to this discussion by concentrating on how consumption patterns may be conceived
as public activities.21 Increasingly women became actors in the market,
consuming items and goods of their own choice. Fashion came to play a
greater role in clothing, home decoration patterns and ways of spending
leisure time among middle and upper-middle classes of women.
Womens work is another area of Ottoman historiography in which the
private and public existence of women are elaborated. Agriculture and the
household are two traditional areas where womens work has been acknowledged but has not been systematically studied. Domestic labor is an area
that remains understudied, apart from studies of Orientalists treatment of
the harem, of concubinage relationships, and women slaves (cariye).22
20Peirce, The Imperial Harem; Melman, Womens Orients.

21Faroqhi, Stories of Ottoman Men and Women; Elizabeth Frierson, Unimagined Communities: Women and Education in the Late-Ottoman Empire 18761909, Critical Matrix
9, no. 2 (1995), 5590; Elizabeth Frierson Mirrors Out, Mirrors In: Domestication and
Rejection of the Foreign in the Late Ottoman Womens Magazines (18751908), in Women,
Patronage and Self-representation in Islamic Societies, ed. D. Fairchild Ruggle (New York:
New York State University, 2000), 177205; Elizabeth Frierson, Gender, Consumption and
Patriotism: The Emergence of an Ottoman Public Sphere, in Public Islam and the Common Good, ed. Armando Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2004),
99125; Haris Exertzoglou, The Cultural Uses of Consumption: Negotiating Class, Gender,
and Nation in the Ottoman Urban Centers during the 19th Century, International Journal
of Middle Eastern Studies 35 (2003), 77101.
22Deniz Kandiyoti, Slave Girls, Temptresses and Comrades: Images of Women in the
Turkish Novel, Feminist Issues (Spring 1988), 3550.
introduction
13
More recently, womens presence in the service and industrial sectors

is attracting increasing interest. Research indicates that middle and lower
middle-class women were employed in the service sector, particularly as
teachers, school administrators, domestic labor, telephone operators, and
tailors.23 While these service jobs were often perceived as extensions of
womens domestic roles, it is obvious that economic necessities drove
these women to the public sphere.
Donald Quaterts work on Ottoman women textile workers invites us
to consider the publicness of womens semi-industrial or industrial labor
in the house.24 Apparently wage-earning at home through the puttingout system, especially in the garment and shoe making sectors, was a
way of making a living for lower class women. Women were employed
in the silk-spinning, tobacco, canned food, and printing sectors as well as
in making soap, matches, and paper.25 Recent research in post-Ottoman
Thessalonikis tobacco labor force demonstrates that late nineteenth and
early twentieth-century women can be studied in terms of class relations,
union activities, positions taken in strikes, and the ethnicity of the female
tobacco laborers.26
War periods are acknowledged as historical settings in which women
are employed in rising numbers both in urban areas and in agriculture.
During wars, women especially work as nurses, seamstresses, cooks,
clerks, and officers, as well as in the industrial sector. Though most of
23Among these some examples are Yavuz Selim Karakla, Osmanl Hanmlar ve
Hizmeti Kadnlar, Toplumsal Tarih 63 (March 1999), 1524; Konak Hanmlndan Sultan
Ahmed Dikimevi iliine: Bir Mslman Osmanl Kadnn Hikayesi, Tarih ve Toplum 112
(April 2003), 2527; Dersaadet Telefon Anonim irket-i Osmaniyesi ve Osmanl Kadnlar
Osmanl Kadn Telefon Memureleri, I, II, III, Tarih ve Toplum 212 (August 2001), 2937; 213
(September 2001), 2133; 214 (October 2001), 4155; Osmanl Hanmlar ve Kadn Terziler
I (18691923), Tarih ve Toplum 232 (April 2003), 1120; Osmanl Hanmlar ve Kadn Terziler II (18691923), Tarih ve Toplum 233 (May 2003), 5260, Osmanl Hanmlar ve Kadn
Terziler III (18691923), Tarih ve Toplum 234 (June 2003), 359368.
24Donald Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households and Textile Manufacturing, 1800
1914, in Shifting Boundaries: Women and Gender in Middle Eastern History, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 161176.
25Ayegl Yaraman, Resmi Tarihten Kadn Tarihine: Elinin Hamuruyla zgrlk (Istanbul: Balam Yaynlar, 2001), 99100.
26Efi Avdela, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in Post-Ottoman Thessaloniki: The Great
Tobacco Strike of 1914, in Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 18701930,
ed. Billie Melman (New York: Routledge, 1998), 421434; Gila Hadar, Jewish Tobacco
Workers in Salonika: Gender and Family in the Context of Social and Ethnic Strife, in
Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender Culture and History, ed. A. Buturovic and Irvin C.
Schick (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 127152; Emine Tutku Vardal, Tobacco
Labor Politics in the Province of Thessaloniki: Cross-communal and Cross-gender Relations, PhD thesis, Boazii University, 2011, especially chapter VI.
14
the time their jobs are temporary and last only until the end of the war,
war should still be taken as a factor that has pushed women into the public sphere.27 Recent studies also tackle the institutional background of
work relations with a focus on the Society for the Employment of Muslim
Women (19161923).28
Finally, a discussion of the late Ottoman public sphere also needs
to take single women into consideration, as new actors in and subjects
of education, literature, and the arts, and in the fields of labor and the
media. The single woman appears as an emergent site where the private
and public are redefined. As elsewhere in Europe, many working single
women seem to cease working once they are married. Thus, the concept
of girlhood in the sphere of education and work slowly entered Ottoman
womens studies.
The move of late Ottoman women into the public sphere through various types of work remains limited though, since womens labor is usually
considered supplemental and temporary. Womens work, while empowering them, seems to have introduced a number of new restrictions and
patriarchal pressures on women. Poor wages, moral pressures, and abuses
were common. In other words, Ottoman womens publicness may have
meant further exploitation of women by their families, by the society, and
by the state.
All in all, research demonstrates that in the late Ottoman context, not
only has the private moved into the public, but publicness itself has also
been expanded and is being theoretically refashioned. Publicness is no
longer restricted to the classic bourgeois public sphere described by Jurgen
Habermas.29 Work from far-flung geographies has further nourished discussion on this term, as womens studies undertaken in widely different
societies enters into dialogue on these issues. Examples like Mary Ryans
work on nineteenth-century American women, Carol Smarts assessment
of the public/private in American revolutionary thought, Belinda Daviss
27For examples of Muslim womens working conditions, see Elif Mahir Metinsoy,
Poor Ottoman Turkish Women During World War I: Womens Experiences and Politics
in Everyday Life, 19141923, PhD thesis (Boazii University, 2012), especially chapter 7.
28Tiine zkiper Oktar, Osmanl Toplumunda Kadnn alma Yaam (Istanbul:
Bilim Teknik Yaynevi, 1998); Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women, Work and War in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women 19161923 (Istanbul:
Ottoman Bank Archive and Research Center, 2005).
29Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. T. Burger
and F. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989) and Craig Calhoun (ed.), Habermas
and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1996).
introduction
15
study on the bread riots in Wilhelmine Germanyall show how women

have in fact been publicly active but in ways that, until recently, were
deemed feminine or private.30 The issue of the publicness of women in
non-Western contexts is closely related to that of womens lived experiences discussed above. As the public sphere in late Ottoman society is
redefined, womens lived experiences, womens solutions to problems
womens politicsare coming to light.
Outline of the Book
This collection of recent scholarly work starts with a section on womens
work, a topic favored by scholars for challenging the idea of women as
passive social agents. Although, due to the availability of sources, scholarship on Ottoman women generally shows an upper-class bias, the first two
articles deal with Ottoman female workers, showing that studying lower
class women, while difficult, is not impossible.
Hasmik Khalapyans paper on the theater as a career for Armenian
women focuses on the dual destiny of Armenian actresses as both victims
of social censure and symbols of progressive modernity. During a period
when women had limited work choices and paid employment was considered dishonorable, theater provided women the possibility of exiting
the narrow domestic space to become visible in the public sphere. The
theater is important here because it offered a space where gender norms
could be overcome.
With their preeminent place on the Armenian and Turkish stage, for
several years actresses enjoyed a mobility and freedom that were highly
unusual for the segregated Ottoman society. The price to pay was heavy
as they frequently became victims of harsh commentary on their personal
morals. Criticism did not, however, discourage the actresses, who considered their devotion to the stage as a sacrifice for the nation. Theater
served as a vehicle for charity, for the promotion of vernacular Armenian,
30Mary P. Ryan, Gender and Public Access: Womens Politics in Nineteenth-century

America, in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1996), 259288; Carol Smart, Gender and the Public/Private in Dichotomy in American Revolutionary Thought, in Regulating Womanhood, Historical Essays on Marriage,
Motherhood and Sexuality, ed. Carol Smart (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 154
166; Belinda Davis, Reconsidering Habermas, Gender, and the Public Sphere: The Case
of Wilhelmine Germany, in Society, Culture and the State in Germany 18701930, ed. Geoff
Eley (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 397426.
16
and as a way of diffusing culture regardless of social class; it thus served as

an important ground for the construction of a common Armenian identity
and consequently for national awakening. The involvement of women was
regarded as indispensable to this civilizing project. One thing that makes
acting unique in the history of Ottoman womens labor is that, thanks to
a lack of competition, it permitted Armenian actresses to acquire salaries
and reputations superior to those of their male colleagues.
The next two articles study Ottoman female workers in the capital and
the periphery. Tutku Vardal explores the working conditions, union
activities, and politicization of women tobacco workers in the outlying
area of early twentieth-century Thessalonica.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman economy was mainly
agricultural, exporting more than a quarter of its annual production.
Among exports, first quality oriental tobacco was of primary importance.
Although the tobacco industry generally flourished in and around port
cities, it was particularly developed in the regions of Selanik and Kavala.
The workforce in the Selanik workshops, ateliers for processing the leaf,
and shops for tobacco sale, was overwhelmingly female and Jewish. However, by the late nineteenth century archival material reveals the participation of Muslim women workers as well. During this period in the region,
smuggling, banditry, and migration may explain a change in the gender
composition of this workforce in favor of women.
Moreover, Vardal argues that women tobacco workers appear to have
mobilized politically through membership in socialist organizations and
by participating in a series of strikes between 1904 and 1914. Vardal reasons that the special nature of the tobacco sectorlow wages and the
absence of opportunities (such as cultivation) to supplement them
inspired women tobacco workers to become active in the proletarian
struggle. Vardal argues that this may well have contributed to the emergence of a class consciousness.
Erdem Kabadays contribution focuses on the female fez makers of
Feshane-i Amire (Fez Factory Administration) of nineteenth-century
Istanbul. This fez factory was one of the earliest and most significant
factories among Ottoman state industries, producing a key commodity
for both military needs and the modernization attempts of the Empire
(the fez was promoted as a more modern replacement for the traditional
turban). The workforce at the factory was exclusively male, but female
workers were integrated into production as a part of a putting-out system.
The raw fezzes were made from felt and the basic shape was blocked out
by women in their homes. Using factory records, two basic questions in
introduction
17
Ottoman labor history are re-examined: the gender and ethno-religious

divisions of labor.
Recent studies argue that the division of labor in Ottoman industry was
not drawn along ethnic or religious lines. Even task allocation by gender, such as spinning for females and weaving for males, has not been
observed. In contrast to these findings, those making fezzes for the factory
were not only exclusively female but almost all non-Muslim; only about
2 percent were Muslim. In this particular case it appears that gender and
religion were in fact factors in Ottoman subjects employment possibilities. Kabadays work thus implies that generalizations should be avoided
in assessing the role of gender and/or religion in Ottoman labor.
The second section of this collection is concerned with education.
Work and education are the demands most frequently made by Ottoman
feminists. What makes the latter particularly significant is that women
so often legitimized their entrance to working life in the name of education. Drawing on a range of articles from popular womens periodicals,
Elif Mahir Metinsoy demonstrates that education, work, and clothing
were the most fervently debated issues among Turkish Ottoman women
writers of the Armistice period (19181923). It is interesting to note that
as participants in these debates women writers often present divergent or
even opposing points of view. They blend elements from progressive and
conservative discourses.
While employment was always a principal demand of the emancipation
movement, the writer Hlide Nusret declared it a masculine responsibility incompatible with fragile feminine nature. Nusret ultimately conceded
to the necessity of womens work in the case of financial difficulties that
many families faced in wartime. Education was promoted not for achieving equality with men but as a means for creating mature women capable of optimally performing their duties as mothers and wives. Metinsoy
shows how special importance was given to young girls physical appearance at school; it was argued that modesty and morality should dictate
students clothing choices. As noted above, womens clothing was hotly
debated in the press of the period. The question of the preservation or
abolition of the veil preoccupied writers. Hlide Nusret argued against
unveiling, while Zehra Hakk claimed that veiling was not a Turkish tradition and favored the idea of a national fashion that included a simple
and modest gown, and a modernized headscarf in place of the veil. The
years between 1919 and 1923 were crucial for the construction of a MuslimTurkish identity. Metinsoys work, based on womens writings, reveals that
as a whole their discourse was far from radicalin comparison to that of
18
the European suffragettesbut was marked rather by a compromising

attitude, one suggesting attempts to negotiate between traditional values
and the yearning for change.
Placing Jewish female education in the broader context of developments
in education in the Empire, Rachel Simon, focusing on Libya, attempts to
map the impacts that modernizing policies had in the lives of (Ottoman)
Jewish women. Jewish girls education was, traditionally, limited to vocational training in domestic tasks. Modern Jewish education in the Empire
began to emerge through external initiatives, especially as a response to
the rising popularity of Christian missionary schools among the different
communities, and with a special interest in girls education. As early as the
1840s, these initiatives flourished; in the 1860s the Alliance Isralite Universelle (AIU) created an extensive school network throughout the Empire.
These schools gained importance as they taught young girls foreign languages and cultures, providing them with opportunities for upward social
mobility and economic gain in a period when poverty prevailed. Modern
education paved the way for womens gradual entrance into wage paying
jobs such as teaching. According to Simon, while Jewish women may not
have gone on to prestigious careers and gender relations did not necessarily change much within the community, modern education did transform
the daily lives of Jewish women by encouraging them to develop social
contacts of both genders in their own and other communities.
Elif Akits paper explores the role of educational policies for girls as
part of the modernization project launched by the Turkish Republic, and
compares this example with that of other non-western contexts. Founded
as alternatives to the girls industrial schools of the Ottoman period, the
Republican girls institutes, like the modern Jewish girls schools, aimed
to create not so much learned women as capable, even scientific homemakers and mothers. An examination of their curricula shows that these
institutes prepared girls for every aspect of domestic life, in line with the
expectations of bourgeois modernity. Indeed, the emulation of Western
models and practices that was part of this educational experience certainly contributed to the emergence of a bourgeois class, but also to an
idea of girlhood, a previously neglected stage in womens lives. The institutes consciously sought to transcend Western perceptions of third-world
children and women as passive beings to be rescued. This alter-nationalist
discourse ideationally connected Turkey to post-colonial regimes such as
India and Iran. What was peculiar to the Turkish case was the reinvention
of girlhood, with the aim of creating a new balance between the public and
introduction
19
the private: by engaging with this liminal personality between childhood

and womanhood the state was able to establish itself within homes.
Republican women were assigned the role of cultural agents: through
female education the state aimed to modernize the family and through
the family, Turkish society as a whole. There is general agreement that
the institutes were instrumental in giving new shape to the public and private in Turkish society. The scientific formalization of domestic activities
such as cooking points to major transformations in the private sphereas
a means to then transform the public sphere. Thus, according to Akit,
with the girls institutes the private and the public were brought together
through home economics.
The third section of this volume takes up the arts. This was an important field for womens expression and self-actualization, as it spans the
verbal-textual, the auditory, and the visual or any combination of these,
and has both a public and private character. All nature of thought and
feeling may be depicted through its media; the arts are also avenues for
critiquing society and social constraints, for rejecting or adopting ideas,
models or stereotypes.
Mihri Mfik Hanm was an Ottoman woman artist who braved the
conventions of her day, taking a place in the public sphere with her reputation as a painter and director of a fine arts school for girls. Burcu Pelvanoglus article focuses on the life and paintings of this unusual figure
who, despite upper class origins, chose a bohemian life at considerable
social cost. Mihri Hanms name is associated with both the institutionalization of art education for girls and with important developments in the
plastic arts in late Ottoman society. Despite her death in impoverished
anonymity in America, Mihri Hanm remains a significant artist whose
paintingsmainly portraits of women and self-portraitsare worth
studying for the challenge they offer to the Orientalist vogue of her time.
Her female figures diverge from the typical representations of servants or
odalisques, depicting respectable, attractive women with an air of frankness, even nonchalance, and presence in the outside world.
The second paper of this section addresses the depiction of stereotypes
of women in the erotic literature and popular novels of early Republican
Istanbul. In the 1920s Turkish society experienced a radical social transformation as the new regime, somewhat startlingly to the society of the
time, began to emphasize women as agents of change. Fatma Tre shows
that in this period, the term new woman carried a dual meaning. On the
one hand, it referred to the new Republican female, one who is useful to
20
the family and her society; on the other hand, it could also designate the
salon woman, a type prone to material and moral profligacy.
Male-female relationships in Ottoman society, a dissolution of traditional values, and changes in womens lives lie at the heart of this erotic
literature that flourished after the 1908 revolution with the abolition
of Hamidian censorship. Analyzing a representative selection of erotic
novels, Tre argues that the types portrayed, closer to the salon woman,
are remote indeed from the ideal Republican woman. The main themes
include the intriguing topics of arranged marriages, the effects of bad childrearing, the expropriation of wealth, venereal diseases, and social problems such as prostitution and gambling. Some stories are characterized
by a pedagogic tone, while others have a more humorous and hence arguably less erotic flavor since, as Tre notes, humor diminishes the sense of
shame and perturbation that is germane to the erotica experience.
The fourth section of this collection deals with women and the press.
Scholars repeatedly emphasize the usefulness of print culture in enriching our knowledge of womens history. The three papers comprising this
section delve into a range of print formats: a womens periodical, an
almanac for women published by a male intellectual, and cartoons. The
papers present male and female points of view and also identify differences between private and collective ideas.
Scrutinizing the pages of Eurydice, an Ottoman Greek womens periodical published in Istanbul in the 1870s, Anastasia Falierou notes womens
roles as spouses, mothers, and housewives and the contribution of this
triple role to the formation of the Greek Orthodox identity. Although
Eurydice is not the first nor the longest lived Greek womens journal, it
deserves attention for representing rising nationalist sentiments in the
Greek community at a particular moment in history, that is, the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, which became a threat to the Ecumenical Patriarchates authority and by extension to the Greek communitys
leading position among the Christian populations of the Empire.
It was also at 1870s that the Greek elite realized the crucial role women
could play in the process of nation building. Of the three main roles that
women were enjoined to embrace, motherhood was considered the most
important. It was argued that women could contribute to the national
regeneration by raising ardent patriots to whom they would inculcate
national ideals. In this connection, women began to be praised as the carriers and transmitters of traditional Greek values as well as modernization.
zgr Tresays paper takes up the Takvmn-nis, an almanac for
women published in 1899 by Ebziya Tevfik, a prominent Ottoman pub-
introduction
21
lisher and intellectual. Situating the almanac in the general historical context of the late nineteenth-century Ottoman press and comparing it with
other publications concerning women, Tresay studies its eclectic contents
in some detail. Already in his introductory remarks, Ebziya links national
progress with womens progress, legitimizing womens education as necessary to the development of their social role as mothers. The idea of women
as transmitters of national culture and values thus seems to appear in all
communities of the period, transcending ethnic and religious frontiers.
The didactic character and the range of fields (household management,
childrearing, hairdressing, the handling of servants, biographies of famous
women, moral virtues) that Takvmn-nis offers for Muslim women
makes it a significant source for Ottoman gender history. The Takvm is
moreover unique in addressing a female audience with a gendered consciousness of time. Ebziya urges women to live in a Muslim temporality, while men are allowed to live in a secular temporality. Interestingly,
Ebziya Tevfiks almanac belies a considerable influence from Protestant
ethics and thus likely contributed to the cultural parameters of Ottoman
bourgeois modernity.
Finally, Franois Georgeons essay treats womens representations in
the immediate pre-Republican Ottoman satirical press. Satire was not a
new genre in Ottoman press history; the first satirical journal, Diyojen, was
published by Theodor Kassapis as early as 1870. However, satire flourished
dramatically between 1919 and 1924.
Expressing what the ordinary press cannot while illustrating a fantasized world, caricatures offer an alternative reading of Ottoman society.
As in the theater, gender roles can be reversed or exaggerated. Georgeon
traces shifts in Ottoman mentality through this genre in regard to an overlapping matrix of issues such as marriage, segregation of the sexes, work,
fashion, womens presence in public, equality of the sexes, and womens
emancipation. The type of women who attracted the humorists attention
was not, notably, the cosmopolitan westernized non-Muslim woman that
had been the focal point in previous years, but the emancipated, modern
Turkish woman, a topic that was off limits in earlier decades. Either as
objects of desire or for purposes of social criticism, the new woman was
now at the center of the press attention. Her social position and the degree
of her emancipation greatly preoccupied Ottoman public opinion, exposing contentions between young and old, modernist and traditionalist.
The last section is devoted to womens biographies or portraits, a genre
also cited by scholars as a valuable and always fruitful source for gender
history.
22
Demetra Vaka, Hayriye Melek Hun, Malek Hifn Nsif, and Nabawiyya
Ms belong to the first generation of women intellectuals from different communities of the Ottoman Empire. Duygu Kksals essay offers
an analysis of the life and thought of Demetra Vaka, a member of the
Istanbul Greek upper-middle class who was privileged to penetrate into
Muslim households through her close contacts with Muslim women. She
later migrated to America, where she worked and then married an American writer. Carrying a plurality of identities as Ottoman, Greek, and finally
American, Vakas personality is fascinating for scholars of the imperial
mentality of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Retracing
the familiar division between East and West, Vaka identifies Turks with
the Muslim Asiatic East and Greeks with the civilized Christian West.
These stereotypes, however, do not remain unchallenged; her later writings are characterized by mixed feelings about the harem and Muslim
womens lifestyles. In several instances, Vaka praises certain virtues of
Turkish culture and expresses her nostalgia for the Ottoman society of her
youth. Later in life, under the influence of American feminism, individualism, and modernism, Vaka defied the Victorian bourgeois values of her
adopted milieu and shifted from being an admirer of the West to become
a critic of Western modernity.
Catherine Mayeurs study traces the birth of feminism in Egypt by contrasting the life stories of Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms. They
belonged to the first generation of women to emerge from the harem,
they were educated in a society where illiteracy was the norm, then went
on to take an active role in the public sphere, following strikingly different courses in life. Malak Hifn Nsif represents a relatively conventional
female type for the period: she came from an upper-class family, married
at the age of twenty-one, then busied herself with charitable work. By
contrast, Nabawiyya Ms, despite her modest social origins, refused marriage and earned her own living by working. Both women wrote extensively on veiling, female education, and employment, and criticized many
aspects of the patriarchal constraints that prevailed. Despite the divergence in their life choices, both Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif
contributed substantiallywhether in radical or more modest waysto
the Egyptian womens awakening, and therefore are considered pioneers
of Egyptian feminism. Mayeurs study reveals that Egyptian nationalism
and feminism were not exclusively elite affairs, but transcended social
boundaries even in their early stages.
Finally, Alexandre Toumarkines paper examines the origins of the Circassian feminist movement through the life and the intellectual activities
introduction
23
of Hayriye Melek Hun. A member of the Circassian elite of the Manyas

region (now northwestern Turkey), Hayriye Melek Hun received a good
education, as had Demetra Vaka, Malak Hifn Nsif, and Nabawiyya Ms.
Following the Young Turk revolution she published extensively in several reviews, wrote romantic stories, and participated in various associations activities. While political activism grew and developed within the
Circassian community, she remained ever active on issues related to the
womens question. Reflecting on her own experiences, her literary works
emphasize impossible love and unhappy marriage.
Hayriye Melek Hun developed a defensive position against the westernization of Muslim women and saw education as the only means to
fight against its corrupting effects. She felt that the 1908 revolution had
been brutal for Muslim women, who were not ready for such dramatic
change; like Demetra Vaka, she believed that change should come gradually. From this perspective, Hayriye Melek is typical of a group of women
intellectuals who grounded their feminist concerns in nationalist discourse, embracing at the same time a humanistic critique of modernity.
She sublimated the ideal of feminine emancipation to the ideal of political
emancipation, which she identified with the cause of Egyptian feminism.
Toumarkines article thus places the experience of Circassian and Turkish
women in late Ottoman society in the broader context of womens movements in the Muslim world.
The wealth of individuals and cases here, each with original life circumstances and responses, offers the occasion to perform a schematic and
comparative compte rendu of theoretical trends in womens history in the
Middle East. For example, we believe that the present volume confirms an
inclination to discern dynamics within settings and individual lives that
offer their own unique lenses of interpretation, in place of seeking to tie
these lives to well-trodden paths in historiography, that is, to show them
as necessarily aligned with a larger historiographical or theoretical itinerary. Given the range of detail and complexity of contexts encountered
in these contributions to late Ottoman feminine historiography, we have
no doubt that readers may find material for interpretations and new academic agendas that transcend even the exciting new theoretical horizons
outlined above. If so, our volume will have served its purpose.
24

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Part One
Women as Economic Actors:

Class, Work, and Social Issues
Chapter One
Theater as Career for Ottoman Armenian Women,

1850 to 1910
Hasmik Khalapyan
Theater has always been a space where gender roles valid for the rest of
the society could be abandoned. In the words of Edmond Got, theater
sometimes turns men into women, while their complete freedom turns
women, up to a point, into men.1 While the notion of complete freedom needs problematizing, in the history of Ottoman Armenian womens labor from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, as a
career choice acting did present a rather non-standard case. This paper
conceptualizes acting as a profession for Armenian women against the
background of the existing job market for women, on the one hand, and
contemporary perceptions of gender norms, on the other. Here we see
that the unique position of Armenian women as actresses on both Ottoman Armenian and Ottoman Turkish stages made acting a conceivable
choice for women at a time when womens work outside the home was
still a controversial issue.
General Information on Womens Employment2
In 1881, Serbouhi Dussap (18411901), the first Ottoman Armenian female
novelist, published an article entitled A Few Words on Unemployment
of Women, which in 1883 became a substantial part of her novel, Mayta.
Here, Dussap appealed to middle-class women to put aside prejudices
against work as dishonorable, and think of it as a means to achieve independence, since a working woman owes nothing to others, is free to think
entirely independently, speak and act without having to yield to outside
1Cited in F. W. J. Hemmings, The Theatre Industry in Nineteenth-century France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, c1995), 199.
2Some of the points made in this section appeared earlier in my article, Womens
Education, Labour or Charity? Significance of Needlework among Ottoman Armenians,
from Mid-Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century, Womens History Magazine 53 (Summer 2006), 2131.
32
hasmik khalapyan
mercenary influences.3 When asked to specify types of jobs suitable for

women, Dussap refused, claiming instead that her purpose was not to
specify intellectual or practical aspects of the issue, but to suggest work as
a principle, because [w]ork is a movement; a movement is progress; and
the limits of progress are boundless.4 Dussaps failure to propose suitable
types of work for women despite her radical views markedly characterizes
the problems of the era regarding the definition of a feminine job market
given the local industrial setting on the one hand, and ideological constraints on womens space and social roles on the other.
Recent studies in womens labor have drawn attention to the limits of
looking to a purely economic analysis to explain patterns of development
in the sexual division of labor.5 According to Kessler-Harris, in the zeal to
pursue the impact of industrialism on gendered labor, [w]e have blurred
aspects of a continuity located in households and communities. Yet, fundamental forms of identity, derived from the household, survived even the
depredations of capital.6
Studies of womens labor in non-western settings have likewise shown
that despite the global character of social change, womens labor has been
strongly influenced by the culture and traditions of the particular locale.7
Disregarding local ideological influences may result in a Eurocentric definition of womens paid labor that maintains a sharp dividing line between
the workplace and the household, the public and the private.8
3The article was first published in Terceman-i Efkr 1212 (1881). It was reprinted in the
Arevelian Mamoul (September 1881) and Meghou Hayastani 16 (1882). My references here
are to its reprint in Arevelian Mamoul.
4Arevelian Mamoul (December 1881), 452458.
5See, for example, Jane E. Lewis, Women Clerical Workers in the Late Nineteenth and
Early Twentieth Century, in The White Blouse Revolution, ed. Gregory Anderson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988); Mary Poovey, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (London: Virago, 1988); Ellen Jordan, The
Exclusion of Women from Industry in Nineteenth-century Britain, Comparative Studies
in Society and History 31, no. 2 (1988), 273296; Ellen Jordan, The Womens Movement and
Womens Employment in Nineteenth-century Britain (London: Routledge, 1999).
6Kessler-Harris, cited in Ellen Jordan, The Womens Movement, 15.
7For this argument and a summary of an impressive number of such cases, see Alice
Kessler Harris Reframing the History of Womens Wage Labor: Challenges of a Global
Perspective, Journal of Womens History 15 (2004), 187205.
8Zarinebaf-Shahr argues specifically regarding the Ottoman Empire that careful definitions of womens economic activity are essential in order to grasp the contours of Ottoman
womens participation in industries as early as the eighteenth century. Fariba ZarinebafShahr, Role of Women in Urban Economy of Istanbul, 17001850, Journal of International
Labor and Working-Class History 60 (Fall 2001), 141152. For a similar point regarding Ottoman womens labor also see Donald Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, and Textile
Manufacturing, 18001914, in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex
theater as career for ottoman armenian women
33
In the Ottoman Empire in the period under discussion, very few occupations were open to Armenian women: teaching, needlework, and domestic
service were among the few options. A small minority could also consider
nursing, acting, journalism, or writing. These limitations may be due to
both ideological perceptions of gender roles and to the pace and character
of Ottoman industrialization.
The most determining ideological constraint relates to how public and
private, male and female spaces were constructed in the Empire, where
seclusion and the segregation of the sexes were observed. As a rule, it was
assumed that Islam-based practices and/or those interpreted as Islamic,9
were observed by Muslims only; each millet had its own practices. Yet
how the ruling culture influenced the cultures of ethnic and religious
communities under imperial domination does deserve consideration. For
example, seclusion and segregation of the sexes were culturally accepted
among Armenians as among other millets,10 though these practices may
not have had the same critical importance as they did for the Muslim
population, since the Armenian millet was not officially bound by Islam
and/or its interpretation. Nevertheless, as Badran notes in the context
of Egypt, although Greek, Jewish, and Armenian women were freer to
innovate and set precedents, they could not confer legitimacy. Muslim
women were more constrained, but only they could lend cultural legitimacy to new behaviors.11
Seclusion and segregation practices were weakening toward the end of
the nineteenth century and women were active promoters of this change.
Though not without heated criticism, mixed gender gatherings, such as
and Gender, ed. Beth Baron and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).
For a similar perspective and case study from North Africa, see Julia Clancy-Smith, A
Woman Without Her Distaff: Gender, Work, and Handicraft Production in Colonial North
Africa, in Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, ed. Margaret L.
Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).
9The origins of these practices are interpreted differently by different scholars. For
some views, at times contradictory, see Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women and Citizenship
in Quran, in Women, the Family and Divorce Laws in Islamic History, ed. Amira El Azhary
Sonbol (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996); Mohsen Kadivar, An Introduction
to the Public and Private Debate in Islam, Social Research (September 2003), 659682.
10Margot Badran writes that in Egypt seclusion and veiling were practiced by both
Christian and Jewish communities. See Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 4.
For Jewish women, see also Ruth Lamdan, Communal Regulations as a Source for Jewish
Womens Lives in the Ottoman Empire, Muslim World 95 (April 2005).
11Badran, 48. My emphasis.
34
hasmik khalapyan
salons and balls, had become accepted among Armenians toward the end
of the century.12 With the increased visibility of women in public, seclusion gave way to a new practice: more frequent outings chaperoned by an
elderly woman, a father, a brother, or a husband.13
During this period, seclusion and segregation were also weakened by
social change and industrialization among Muslims and non-Muslims
alike. Variations in these trends occurred over time, as well as across
locations (cities vs. provinces).14 In the textile factories, womens work
was for the first time situated outside the household.15 However, until its
decline in 1918, the Ottoman Empire remained largely an agrarian state
with three-quarters of its population living in the countryside, where livelihoods depended on agriculture and related activities.16 With few exceptions, the pace of Ottoman industrialization did not, as in case of womens
12According to Zabel Yessayan (1878 Constantinople1942? Soviet Armenia), women

of her grandmothers generation never left home in their youth; Zabel herself participated
in the mixed gender literary salons of Constantinople in her early adulthood. See Zabel
Yessayan, [Gardens of Silihdar] in Zabel Yessayan: Works
(Haypethrat, Yerevan 1959). [[Yerevan: Haypethrat, 1959?]] Feminist author and activist
Anas (Yevpime Avetissian, 1871 Constantinople1950 Paris) claims mixed sex gatherings
in salons in Constantinople were introduced for the first time by her grandfather. See
[My memoirs], Anas Fund, Dossier 9, Yeghishe Charents National Museum of
Literature and Art, Yerevan, Armenia (hereafter NMLA), 9.
13As late as in 1906, the womens magazine Tsaghik protested against the belief that
a decent girl must not go out without a chaperone, calling it our idiotic and sickly tradition, Tsaghik 21 (26 January 1906).
14Although women started to work in the textile factories of Bursa and had to mix
unveiled with men at work after 1855, fifteen Turkish women hired by the ministry of
finance during World War I to replace conscripted men had to wear the veil and had their
own separate office space. See Reat Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy
in the Nineteenth Century (Albany: State University of New York, 1988), 145n269 and Fanny
Davis, The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918 (New York: Greenwood Press,
1986), 53.
15Such a move was not easy. Facing reluctant potential laborers, entrepreneurs in
both the Bursa and Lebanon regions brought employees from France and Switzerland to
give instructions in the new technology and demonstrate by their example that women
could work safely in such factories. Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, 163164.
According to Owen, many factory owners had close ties with local religious institutions
and authorities, both Christian and Muslim, and frequently called upon these to convince
local families that womens work in the factory was not immoral. See Roger Owen, The
Silk-Reeling Industry of Mount Lebanon, 18401914: A Study of the Possibilities and Limitations of Factory Production in the Periphery, in The Ottoman Empire and the World
Economy, ed. Huri slamolu-nan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
16Donald Quataert, Part IV: The Age of Reform, 18121914, in An Economic and Social
History of the Ottoman Empire, 13001914, ed. Halil nalcik and Donald Quataert (Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
35
labor in Great Britain,17 create a sharp division between the household

and the workplace; here, industrialization did not produce fundamental
changes in the structure of public and private domains. Thus the ideological construction of space, while reinterpreted and rearticulated, was
not fundamentally challenged, and its specter haunted perceptions of
womens work outside the home throughout the period under discussion,
even when, at least rhetorically, progressive reformers were fighting for
womens emancipation.18
Ideological perceptions and an economic setting unfavorable for women
were further complicated by the administrative districting of Constantinople. The capital city consisted of neighborhoods (mahalle)19 in which
social divisions of the nineteenth century were ethnic and religious, not
social.20 There was a concept of integration and self-sufficiency attached
to the mahalles, as they often provided most of the basic establishments
and services necessary for daily life: religious centers, public fountains,
shops, etc. Eldem notes that with the exception of the socially privileged
minority, the self-sufficiency of the mahalles logically meant limited
mobility for its inhabitants:
Especially for groups of an inherently more restricted mobility such as
women, life was essentially circumscribed, and was determined by a set of
17In Great Britain, a rupture occurred in the nineteenth century when paid household labor gradually shifted to the workplace. Industrialization had different impacts on
women of different classes. For upper and upper middle-class women it meant increased
domestication and dependency on the male breadwinner, whereas economic need pushed
lower middle-class and lower-class women from the household out to the workplace. The
shift of work from inside to outside the household meant its moving from the private
to the public, resulting in greater public visibility for women, if for exploitative reasons.
Jordan, The Womens Movement; Catherine Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations
in Feminism and History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992).
18Zabel Yessayan wrote in her unpublished autobiography: During that period [late
1890s] the feeling of hatred was strong in me. I observed contradictions everywhere and
in everyone, a disharmony of speech and act, and suffered greatly. Hovhaness Shahnazar
defended womens emancipation in [the pages of ] Hayrenik [but] during a friendly conversation he would say that a certain girl lacked a sense of decency because one day she
had come to the editing house without a chaperone to enquire about work. See Autobiography, Zabel Yessayan Fund, Dossier 6, NLMA, 317.
19According to the 1907 census, there were 147 mahalles. Allen Duben and Cem Behar,
Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility, 18801940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 30.
20Edhem Eldem, Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital, The Ottoman City
Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, ed. Edhem Eldem, et al. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152155.
36
hasmik khalapyan
communal controls and modes of behavior ranging from the family/household to the latent supervision of neighborhood relations.21
Administrative districting determined womens labor in two further ways.

Firstly, confined to their neighborhoods, women were generally expected
to look for jobs locally, and within their own millet. If opportunity presented itself elsewhere, women would hesitate to respond.22
Secondly, the size of the neighborhoods meant that their inhabitants were subject to strict behavioral norms. Through daily interactions,
small Armenian neighborhood inhabitants generally knew one another
and closely followed one anothers mores and behavior. Public opinion
restrained nonstandard or unusual behavior; anyone so inclined was
doomed to be judged by others. Such restraint was particularly noticeable in the case of women, as they were held responsible for culture and
morals and could easily be labeled as loose. With few exceptions, confined
to their neighborhoods and limited in their actions and choices, most
women whose labor was important to the family budget had to settle for
what was available nearby, and then only among a small number of occupations considered feminine.
Work Defined and Rationalized by Reformers23
Despite all ideological and economic constraints, by the turn of the century womens labor in lower as well as in declining middle-class families
had become increasingly vital for survival. Adding to economic hardship
in Constantinople, political unrest and the massacres of the 1890s and
1909 in the provinces produced waves of migrant widows and orphans.
Charity and philanthropy proved insufficient to provide for these victims,
such that offering these women paid work rather than charitable assistance became a preferred response.
21Eldem, Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital, 152153.

22For example, only young women residing in Pera attended the nursing classes organized in Pera, an attempt to open nursing jobs for women, because women did not dare
take the ferry boat from one district of the city to another without a chaperone. G. Zarouhi,
[Nurses] Byouzandyon 2605 (9 April 1904).
23Reformer refers to male and female activists of the Armenian millet who in most
cases worked independently from the decision-making authorities, but nonetheless sought
to influence decision-making and governing procedures within the Armenian millet by
creating a public opinion through writings, literary salons, etc.
37
In debates defending womens labor in and outside the home, lowerclass women were of lesser interest; the issue was most pressing with the
declining middle class, both in concrete terms and in regard to discourses
creating consensus on work within the womens movement. Since a familys status was judged by the amount of leisure available to its women,
a middle-class womans working for pay was unavoidably a sign of her
familys economic vulnerabilityand something she would certainly not
want to be known. As with their counterparts in Europe, here, too, there
was a constant effort to catch up or keep up with upper-class lifestyles.24
For the middle class, paid labor inside, but particularly outside, the
home was considered dishonorable for the family as a whole. As Zarouhi
Galemkearian recalls in her autobiography:
How conservative the social norms were! Girls of modest [social] status
would often hide the need to earn money working outside the household.
Women who embroidered tival (decorative panels) or crocheted at home to
meet essential needs or to help the family regarded the money earned as a
sort of disgrace.25
In the early 1900s and from a well-off family, Galemkearians family did not
allow her to accept money for working as a journalist at the weekly Byouzandyon. Her mother, who served on the board of trustees of the National
Hospital, would take her pay and use it to buy sweets for hospital patients,
thus giving her daughters salary to charity. The mother of the prominent
actress, Azniv Hrachia, reluctantly agreed to her daughter acting, but only
after receiving the theater managers promise not to pay her daughter a
salary. But Azniv secretly accepted to be paid: Why would I not take it?
It was the money I had earned. It was my honest wages.26 She thus hid
her earnings from her motherat least until the family exhausted her late
fathers inheritance.
Azniv Hrachias case is an example of how economic pressures could
force families to abandon ideological preconceptions, and as such examples grew in number, new formulations of and rationales for the family
and womens role in it became necessary. Bowing to economic necessity,
educated men and women created a discourse encouraging women and
24For Germany, see Gisela Bock, Women in European History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 94; for England, see Jordan, Womens Movement, 3336.
25Zarouhi Galemkearian, [The path of my life] (Antilas: Publicationof Armenian Catholicosate, 1952), xviii.
26Azniv Hrachia, [My memoirs] Anahit 12 (AprilMay
1909), 1416.
38
hasmik khalapyan
their families to think favorably of paid labor for women. Along these lines,
some came to see a contradiction between womens demand for emancipation and their idle lifestyles, with the result that work came to be seen
as the truest form of feminism and emancipation. Visiting a textile factory
in Yedi Kule, Stepan Khachouni declared to a well-to-do female audience
that working women were the true models of feminism because real
feminism, in its larger meaning, is womans labor and feminists are the
working women.27
References to Europe had dual meanings and were used for dual purposes, depending on the message desired. For encouraging women to
engage in wage labor the preferred reference was European women, as the
more confined Muslim women could hardly serve as a model:
When it is impossible to sustain a home with the ever changeable and
declining earnings of men, when needs have grown and often the demands
of life grow day by day, what should be done? After all we must live, mustnt
we?...Today civilized countries proudly exhibit large groups of women and
girls at work who have even succeeded in surpassing men with their exceptional talents and abilities, in addition ensuring secure material circumstances for themselves and those around them.28
While public opinion on womens employment in and outside the home

entered a period of transformation, women found themselves faced with a
limited labor market due to the economic conditions of the late Ottoman
Empire, but also to ideological constructions of space:
An Armenian girls sphere of work is narrow. Even if the number of factories
and workshops were to increase among us, this type of work and way of
living would be seen as totally unsuitable for the poor among us, since not
only our customs and ways of living differ entirely from the Europeans, but
this kind of workplace in which men and women are in continuous contact
with each other cannot but harm the sense of modesty and simplicity that
are the sole wealth of poor and honor-loving families.29
In this context, Europe acquired a negative meaning, and the Armenian

working woman represented everything that the over-exposed European woman and the over-confined Muslim woman were not. Armenian
women were asked to find jobs that would correspond to our environ27Stepan Khachouni, [Feminist women], Manzume-i Efkar 1491
(17 September 1906).
28Paytsar Khantamian, [The sewing machine] Tsaghik 40 (8 June
1906).
29 [Our girls], Arevelian Mamoul 2 (4 April 1894).
39
ment, our needs, our abilities and endeavors.30 Women were expected
to conform to the demands of the machine-age while keeping their distance from professions perceived as masculine:
We do not wish our innocent Armenian girls to serve in restaurants, taverns,
coffeehouses, and bars, as waitresses, singers or dancers. We have seen this,
though fortunately in small numbers...and blood froze in our veins.31
Choosing Acting as Career

Although acting and actresses had no place in the discourses and perceptions of gender norms in the period, Armenian actresses appeared
on stage well before womens labor outside the home became a topic of
debate. This was not an easy achievement, as is illustrated in what follows. As it happened, a handful of reformers had a significant impact on
the professions becoming acceptable, even attractive, for many women
and their families.
Armenians are considered the founders of the modern Ottoman theater, having organized the first Turkish language theater in the 1850s.32
In 1869, the state granted a ten-year monopoly to the Ottoman Theater
founded by Hakob Vardovian. The cast was initially Armenian although
in later years Turkish actors were also included. The actresses remained
exclusively Armenian.
The development of theater among Armenians and the promotion
of actresses should be seen in the context of modernization, national
awakening, the adoption of the Armenian constitution, and the strong
commitment to all these by a certain number of Armenian intellectuals.
Theater provided a new milieu for the articulation of public opinion as
part of the project of creating an all-Armenian culture cutting across
classes. It also served as a medium for promoting vernacular Armenian
30Marie Beylerian, [Types of womens
occupations] Artemis 1 (January 1903), 7. Emphasis added.
31Marie Beylerian, [A few words to those
who misunderstand us], Artemis (JulyAugust 1902), 195.
32Garnik Stepanian, . 1, 2, 3. [The
history of western Armenian theater: volume I, II, III] (Yerevan: Press of National Academy of Sciences, 1978). For the role of Armenians in the establishment of the theater in
Turkish sources, see Garnik Stepanian,
[Turkish sources on the role of Armenians
in the development of Turkish theater] (Yerevan: Press of National Academy of Sciences,
1883).
40
hasmik khalapyan
(ashkharhabar), much to the dismay of supporters of the classical language (grabar). Theater also served as a channel for charity when income
from the performances was donated to poor and orphan relief societies.
All of this contributed to laying the foundations of a civil society. Women
were crucial to this project since the level of civilization depended on the
status of women in society: the fact that Armenians were the only millet
whose women appeared on the stage made acting an honorable occupation in the eyes of reformers since it demonstrated the Armenians unique
progressiveness. Under these circumstances a woman stepping onto the
stage became both an object and subject of these efforts. These special
conditions were responsible for maintaining theater and women actors
outside the more common perceptions of womens space and roles.
Actresses boldly appeared on stage at a time when women in the audience continued to watch them segregated behind lattices.33 In 1864, when
a woman was labeled shameless for serving as a school administrator
in Marash,34 the first professional Armenian actress, Arousyak Papazian,35
was glorified as prima donna of the Arevelian Tatron (Eastern Theater).
Actresses were seen as true heroines. During Arousyaks performances,
men in the audience would throw flags under her feet.36 A prominent
literary and political figure from Russian Armenia, Mikael Nalbandian
(18291866) wrote after his visit to Constantinople in the late 1860s: The
history of Armenian theater will not forget the honorable young women
Arousyak and Aghavni Papazian...They boldly warred against influences of the public prejudices against them, and triumphing over them,
appeared on the stage.37
With the intensification of censorship in Sultan Abdlhamids reign
and the end of Vardovians ten-year monopoly on the Ottoman Theater
33. . -i, i: i [Constantinople entertainment: From summer impressions] (Tiflis, 1903).
34Victoria Rowe, History of Armenian Womens Writing (18801921) (London: Cambridge
Scholars Press, 2003), 166167.
35Arousyak Papazian (1841 Constantinople1907 Constantinople) is considered the
first professional actress of the Ottoman stage. She first appeared in the Hekimian theatrical group in 18571859, and joined the Arevelian Tatron (Eastern Theater) in 1861. Some
of the major plays by non-Armenian playwrights in which she appeared in leading roles
were: Sappho in Franz Grillpartzers Sappho; Blanche in Hugos The King Amuses Himself,
Antigone in Sophocles Antigone; Francesca in Silvio Pellicos Francesca da Rimini; Elise in
Molieres The Miser, etc. Her acting career was short; it was put to an end with her marriage due to her husbands opposition.
36Stepanian, vol. 1, 354.
37Mikael Nalbandian, [National theater in Constantinople] in [Complete collection of works], vol. II,
307311.
41
in 1879, Armenian language theaters were banned and performances

were allowed only with occasional or exceptional permission. Armenian
actors status also weakened as they faced competition with Turkish counterparts, who often criticized the intolerable accents of the Armenians.
However, the position of Armenian actresses remained unchallenged as
Armenians continued to be the only millet whose women appeared on
stage. Even after the first Turkish actresses appearance during the 1919
1920 theater season, for ten successive years leading roles were played by
Armenian actresses, and Elize Pinnemejian remained the highest paid artist of the Turkish stage until 1925.38 It is, therefore, not only the role of
the theater in Armenian nationalism that put Armenian actresses above
common perceptions of gender roles. They were also unique because they
enjoyed a lack of competition from other groups, and that set them apart
not only from other Ottoman women, but more significantly, it set them
above Armenian men.
But what did acting mean for women themselves? Acting as a career
was socially integrative. For most of the actresses, at least in their first
years in this role, the stage was seen as a career, not just an activity
inspired by love of art or national ideals. Arousyak Papazian worked as a
teacher prior to becoming an actress.39 Azniv Hrachia40 started out as an
actress, continued to earn her living through needlework during the years
of crisis in the theater, and returned to the theater later on.41 Mariam
Goumbassian42 worked as a governess for wealthy families before beginning her acting career.43 Parents were generally reticent to approve of
their daughters acting careers, unless theater managers convinced them
38Stepanian, Turkish Sources, 45.

39Sharasan, (18501908) [The Turkish Armenian
stage and its actors (18501908)] (Constantinople: n.p., 1914), 30.
40Azniv Hrachia (1853 Constantinople1920 Soviet Armenia) first appeared on stage in
1869 in the Arevelian Tatron, later joining the Ottoman Theater. In early 1880s she moved
to Tiflis (currently Tbilisi, a cultural center for Russian Armenians), acting in local theaters.
She left the stage from 1883 to 1893 for health and maternity reasons, resuming her acting in addition to directing plays in the 1890s in Baku. Some of her major non-Armenian
roles were Joan of Arc in Schillers Virgin of Orleans; Marguerite Gautier in Duma the
Sons Lady with Camellias, Sofia in Alexander Grebayedovs Woe from Wit; Nina in Mikhail
Lermontovs Masquerade; and Portia in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice.
41Azniv Hrachia, [My memoirs], Anahit 12 (AprilMay
1909): 1229; [My memoirs], Anahit 34 (JuneJuly 1909): 7191;
[My memoirs], Anahit 56 (AugustSeptember 1909): 109122.
42Mariam Goumbassian, born Tsaghikian (18311909). First appearance on stage was in
1862; last appearance was in 1884.
43Sanatrouk Goumbassian, [Biography
of Mariam Goumbassian, written by her son] (Constantinople: n.p., 1909).
42
hasmik khalapyan
they would protect the morality of the young women. Local religious
authorities were in some cases asked to intervene,44 a pattern common
in factory work as well.45
The scarcity of women willing to act made actresses the most materially favored among other working women, even compared to male actors.
Salaries were determined according to rank, and women were typically
granted the first rank, ensuring them salaries higher than male actors.46
Morality questions did create prejudice against Armenian actresses in
the general population, outside a small group of reformers and literati. Marriage prospects could be problematic, since families sometimes refused to
accept an actress as a bride into the family. Many years passed before Azniv
Hrachias fianc received his familys permission to marry her.47 Lousnyak48
remained single and lived outside of wedlock with a certain Doctor Ormanian, whose brother was a Patriarch (Patriarch Ormanian, 18951908), as
the family had refused to accept an actress as a daughter-in-law.49 In cases
when they did marry someone outside theater circles, actresses more often
than not would leave the stage to do so, as was the case with the sisters
Arousyak, Yereanouhi, and Vergine Karaghasian.50 In her note congratulating Siranoush on her thirty-fifth birthday,51 celebrated in Bak in 1909,
Azniv Hrachia addressed the audience with the following words:
44Sharasan, 70; 142.

45See note 16.
46Stepanian, vol. 2, 150. Facing more difficulty in the recruitment of actresses than the
Ottoman Armenians, the Russian Armenian theater in Tiflis paid first-rank female performers higher salaries than those for male actors of the same rank, while second-rank actresses
received the same salary as first-rank actors. See Aram Yeremian,
70- .
: : [The history of Russian Armenian theater from the beginning
to 1970s: A historical critical inquiry. Volume 1] (Venice: Publication St. Lazar, 1933),
480490.
47Azniv Hrachia, My Memoirs.
48No biographical information available.
49Anas, My Memoirs, 4243.
50Sharasan, 90 and 141.
51Siranoush (1857 Constantinople1932 Cairo) acted in the Eastern Theater from 1873,
joined Fasouliajians theater in 1874 and Vardovians Ottoman Theater later that same
year; there she acted in both Armenian and Turkish language performances as well as in
operas. With the prohibition of the Armenian theater in 1879, Siranoush moved to Tiflis.
From then on, she remained based mainly in Tiflis and Baku although she made frequent
tours to Constantinople, as well as to Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Romania. In 1901 she
played Shakespeares Hamlet, causing much commotion in intellectual circles. Siranoush
had the largest repertoire of all Armenian actresses, with up to 300 roles. Some of her
more important parts in non-Armenian plays were: Ophelia and Hamlet in Shakespeares
Hamlet, Amelia in Schillers The Robber, Marguerite Gautier in Dumas the Sons Lady with
43
Thirty-five years ago a young Armenian womans appearance on stage was

a great sacrifice. To be called a theater girl, and be ridiculed by the crowd,
to withstand all this and move forward was possible only if one had strong
enough willpower.52
Armenian actresses never spoke of their profession as a boon, given the

limited professional options for women. Rather, the theaters association with national pride and the criticisms that actresses were subject to
inspired them to speak of their choice as a sacrifice made for the sake of
the nationone which, however, was arguably not fully appreciated. In
her mature years, Siranoush described the stage and her nation as interwoven in her imagination: For many years I have loved the stage for the
sake of the Armenian people; and for the sake of the stage, I have loved
the [Armenian] people.53
On a production trip to Izmir in 1867, Arousyak drew a picture of an
ungrateful audience and interpreted as gender bias a critique that had
appeared in Constantinople newspapers earlier that yearwhile once
again linking her acting to national interests:
I, a young woman, a young Armenian woman, zealous for the progress and
prosperity of my nation, covered the image of decency common to my sex
with a veil of masculine boldness and came to this arena for the sake of my
nation and the theater, ready for all sacrifices...My ardent desire to render
a small service to the beloved nation...was a great source of motivation for
me. Such a thing may be far from what Armenian mothers may want for
their daughters, but I do it for the Armenian public, for progress and for my
own convictions...My position is full of difficulties and I have undertaken a
great responsibility...How difficult it is to be a young woman in such a trying occupation, an actress constantly judged according to various opinions,
with as many supporters as denouncers in one and the same society...54
Curiously, Armenian feminists stayed aloof from acting and theater,

or from promoting them as a career. Despite the extensive coverage of
actresses careers in mainstream periodicalstheir birthdays and other
such detailswomens periodicals Artemis (19021903), Tsaghik (1905
1907) and Louys (1907) by and large refrained from writing on these topics.
Camellias, Portia in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice, Joan of Arc in Schillers Virgin of

Orleans, Medea in Medea, etc. For a full biographical account of Siranoush, see S. Zatikian,
[Siranoush] (Yerevan: State Publishing House, 1961), 151152.
52S. Zatikian, [Siranoush], 151.
53Gorts (28 January 1909).
54Cited in Stepanian, vol. 1, 490n20.
44
hasmik khalapyan
Tsaghik even expressed frustration that actresses were not judged with
the same norms of morality as other women:
Public morality has always shown particular tolerance towards
actresses...The decency of a woman of theaterau fondis the least of
our worries and has never bothered society....If the life of an actress is
full of adventures...the public does not judge her for such an insignificant
thing. Everyone understands that this isolated world, which is called theater,
cannot be judged on equal terms with the general mores ruling the rest of
the society....If for simple mortals the fall of a woman is an unrecoverable
circumstance, in backstage lives it is a trivial incident. An actress will never
lose the respect of the public for having a lover or a child out of wedlock.55
When the ban on Armenian language performances was lifted following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, women from the cosmopolitan
Istanbul neighborhood of Pera presented a piece of jewelry to Mrs. Dourian-Armenian at a charity occasion she had organized. Byouzandyon celebrated the occasion: Above all expressions of appreciation, the jewelry
will remain as a token of Armenian womans pioneering love for art and
especially for the woman artist.56
Conclusion
In the course of the nineteenth century very few careers were open to
Ottoman Armenian women, due to the difficult economic state of late
Ottoman society and to perceived gender norms. In this respect, the theater presented a unique case in the history of Armenian womens labor. As
founders of modern theater in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian reformers
and literati attached such great pride to this development that womens
appearance on stage was perceived as an act of patriotism. This point of
view was clearly positive for women who otherwise had few choices for
supporting themselves and their families. Thus theaters importance for
the Armenian population allowed actresses to remain largely outside the
rigidly defined gender norms for working women, and made the stage an
attractive career for some. Given the support of reformers, criticism of
actresses unconventional behavior and lifestyles was seen as insignificant
as long as their careers were linked to the nations cause of progress.
55F. Jenterejian, [Decency in theater] Tsaghik 22
(9 July 1905), 380382.
56S. B. . - [Yevgineh: Mrs. Dourian-Armenian].
Byouzandyon 3721 (19 December1 January 1909).
45
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Stowasser, Barbara Freyer Women and Citizenship in Quran, in Women, the Family
and Divorce Laws in Islamic History, ed. Amira El Azhary Sonbol. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press, 1996.
Yeremian, Aram. 70
. : : [The history of Russian Armenian theater from beginning to 1970s: A historical critical inquiry. Volume 1].
Venice: Publication St. Lazar, 1933.
Yessayan, Zabel. Autobiography, Zabel Yessayan Fund, Dossier 6, Yeghishe Charents
National Museum of Literature and Art.
Zarinebaf-Shahr, Fariba. Role of Women in Urban Economy of Istanbul, 17001850. Journal of International Labor and Working-Class History 60 (Fall 2001), 141152.
Zatikian, S. [Siranoush]. Yerevan: State Publishing House, 1961.
List of Periodicals
Anahit 1909 12 (AprilMay, 1909), 1416.
Arevelian Mamoul (September 1881).
Arevelian Mamoul (December 1881).
Arevelian Mamoul (4 April 1894).
Artemis (JulyAugust 1902).
Artemis (January 1903).
Byouzandyon 2605 (9 April 1904).
Byouzandyon 3721 (19 December 1909).
Manzume-i Efkar 1491 (17 September 1906).
Meghou Hayastani 16 (1882).
Tercman- Efkr 1212 (1881).
Tsaghik 22 (9 July 1905).
Tsaghik 21 (26 January 1906).
Tsaghik 40 (8 June 1906).
Chapter Two
Searching for Womens Agency in the Tobacco Workshops:

Female Tobacco Workers of the Province of Selanik
E. Tutku Vardal
Until recently Ottoman womens studies has largely been engaged with
womens intellectual history and the critique of Orientalism, and focused
on womens intellectual activities and the question of womens agency
in the late nineteenth century. An increasing interest in labor studies of
the past few years has contributed this agenda, adding new perspectives.
In this regard, this study serves two important areas of investigation: the
ecomically dispossessed lower classes of women and the image of the submissive Oriental woman.
The Ottoman womens movement has generally been associated with
political developments and is frequently discussed in relation to political
issues of the Second Constitutional period. Yet modernizing forces encouraging womens agency are not just narrowly political, but also social and
economic. In parallel to global developments, lower-class Ottoman women
were integrated into the labor force earlier than were the upper class and
educated. A writer in the magazine Kadnlar Dnyas [Womens world]
points out that while the general effort was to improve the conditions and
possibilities of employment for Ottoman women, especially professional
Muslim women, there was already a massive female labor force in the textile sector working in miserable conditions.1 This class sensibility is also
illustrated in 1869, in a Muslim womans letter to the newspaper Terakki
[Progress], in which she describes the living conditions of women workers, which contrast dramatically with the lofty aspirations of the middle
class. Faika writes:
When my father was an official in Balkesir, I saw those poor Anatolian
women working and working, by God, to earn more than men. What does
it mean to present ourselves as ladies? If there is no money in our pockets,
what good is it to be ladylike?2
1Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1994), 300.
2Elizabeth B. Frierson, Unimagined Communities: State, Press and Gender in the
Hamidian Era, PhD thesis (Princeton University, 1996), 244.
48
e. tutku vardal
Such examples suggest that the way women integrate into the public
sphere determined the form of struggle they engage in. This study of
women tobacco workers of Selanik province at the turn of the twentieth
century is carried out in an investigatory framework that seeks to evaluate
the position of working women of the late Empire and their role in the
organization of labor.3
Studying lower class women is a difficult, but not entirely impossible
task. A body of work does exist; textile workers are the most commonly
studied group.4 This is because the textile sector was the most longstanding and to all appearances the one to employ womens labor most
extensively throughout the period of transformation from commercial to
industrial capitalism.5 In this literature, we see how focus on the female
worker has sometimes dramatically changed received knowledge when
it supplements the history of Ottoman manufacturing in the nineteenth
century. Donald Quataert, for example, argues that womens labor is a
key to understanding this history. As throughout the century the output of the traditional male-dominated guild type labor organizations
fell, women stepped in to play key roles in textile manufacturing, operating from both the home and the workshop. Here, womens labor was
a determining factor mediating the Empires integration into the world
economy. As part of this process, in addition to various marginally professional jobs, Ottoman women were also heavily employed in the massive
agricultural export sector. Thus it could be argued that the under-representation of women in Ottoman labor history is directly related to a more
general under-representation of labor categories outside the industrial
sector in late Ottoman historiography. Here we propose that studying
the agriculturally-based workshop environment could further enlarge the
3The Province of Selanik here refers to the Ottoman administrative unit, the vilyet
which includes the district (sancak) of Drama and the sub-district (kaza) of Kavala. In
contemporary literature, Salonica or Selanik often refers to the center of the province.
In this study, it will be referred as Selanik because the time and space limits of the study
correspond specifically to the Ottoman administrative unit Selanik.
4There have been important attempts to access the world of lower-class women. Ottoman court registers, for example, have been used to explore the status of women in relation to domestic matters such as crime, divorce, inheritance, etc. See Madeline Zilfi (ed.),
Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era (Leiden:
E.J. Bill, 1997).
5See Donald Quataert, Women Households and Textile Manufacturing 18001914,
in The Modern Middle East, ed. Albert Hourani, et al. (London: I.B.Tauris, 1993), 255270.
Yavuz Selim Karakla, Uakta Kadn Hal ilerinin syan (1908), Toplumsal Tarih 8,
no. 99 (2002), 5457. M. ehmus Gzel, 1908 Kadnlar, Tarih ve Toplum 7 (1984), 612.
searching for womens agency in the tobacco workshops
49
literature on womens labor. And the inclusion of workshop labor into

Ottoman labor history would not only inscribe women into history but
also redefine categories in Ottoman labor history.
In her book on the working lives of Ottoman women, Tiine Oktar
states that in the early years of the twentieth century (1914) the Rgie
Franaise des Tabacs tobacco factory in Istanbul was not yet employing
Muslim women.6 Workshops in Aydn (southwest Anatolia), Trabzon,
and Selanik provinces, however, already employed a considerable number of women by this time.7 From Quataert, again, we learn that women
constituted the majority of the labor force in the tobacco workshops of
Selanik city as early as 1908.8 This study aims to investigate the laboring
women in these workplaces, and what they contributed to the tobacco
workers struggle for rights. It is well known that tobacco workers of this
region constituted the core of the Ottoman socialist movement. It is
argued that labor organizing and politicization, in a sector like tobacco in
which women predominated at the turn of the century, deserves special
attention.
Ottoman Economy and the Tobacco Sector
in the Late Nineteenth Century
The nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was characterized by a process
of integration into the world economy. This process, together with progressive monetization of the economy, changed the nature of relations
between the state and its subjects. Previous relations based on the circle
of justice, namely an interdependence between the governing elite and
the governed, was being replaced by a new relations, this time shaped
by economic rationality. State-society relations also became more complex as new actors and forces entered the field of existing power relations. Transnational capital was one of these new forces at work in power
6Tiine Oktar, Osmanl Toplumunda Kadnn alma Yaam: Osmanl Kadnlar

altrma Cemiyet-i slamiyesi (Istanbul: Bilim Teknik Yaynevi, 1998), 179. Note that in
1881 the Rgie Franaise des Tabacs obtained a monopoly over the buying, manufacturing,
and selling of tobacco for internal consumption in the Empire.
7BOA. DH. D., 107/29; BOA. Y.PRK. DH., 8/58.
8Donald Quataert, The Workers of Salonica, in The Workers and the Working Class
in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic 18391950, ed. Donald Quataert and Erik Jan
Zrcher (London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies in Association with the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 1995), 66.
50
e. tutku vardal
networksand reaction to themof the late Empire.9 Since women

were heavily employed in various sectors that were developing during
this process of transnationalization, especially the textile and the agricultural product processing sectors, womens roles in the new resistance
practiceswage disputes, strikes and the likeappear to be a promising
field of investigation.
As agricultural exports became an important mechanism for integration with the world economy, crop processing ateliers (workshops) flourished in major port cities of the empire; from here the goods were then
exported. In spite of being seasonal and unstable, this sector employed
a considerable workforce. Interestingly, Ottoman labor historians have
paid considerable attention to the small and underdeveloped Ottoman
industry along with the larger manufacturing sector while somehow overlooking the agricultural export sector and its labor force. As shown in the
postcard below, however, the major Ottoman ports owed much of their
vibrancy to the trade in agricultural products.
Responding to rising international demand, the tobacco sector was at
the height of its expansion toward the end of the nineteenth century and,
among other export items of the Empire, first quality oriental tobacco
held a position of prominence. While processed and exported from most
major port cities of the Empire, the heart of the sector was truly Selanik
province, especially its sub-province, Kavala.10 Here, tobacco exports skyrocketed 250 percent between 1892 and 1909.11 The number of exporters,
including companies and individual merchants, also increased. We can
follow this phenomenal growth from the French yearbooks (Annuaire Oriental) of the period. Here, for example, we gather that from 1896 to 1909,
the number of tobacco merchants increased 400 percent in the central
9Transnational capital, in the form of monopolistic corporations and transnational
banks financing the central goverment and also commerce, had become influential actors
in the power relations of late nineteenth-century Ottoman society. Thus, part of the social
resistance of the period was directed against this new force. As Donald Quataert documents, many of the strikes after 1908 took place in foreign companies doing busines in
the Empire. See Donald Quataert, Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 18811908: Reactions to European Economic Penetration (New York: New York
University Press, 1983).
10According to 1909 external trade statistics, annual tobacco exports from Selanik province reached about 17 million kilos. The Kavala sancak alone exported 12 million kilos of
this total amount. Second after Selanik was Trabzon province, with 7 million kilos annual
export. Filiz Drolu, Memalik-i Osmaniye Duhanlar Mterekl-Menfaa Reji irketi
(Istanbul: Osmanl Bankas Ariv ve Aratrma Merkezi, 2007), 46. See also, Annuaire Oriental, 1909.
11Quataert, Workers of Salonica, 66.
51
Selanik district and 516 percent in the Kavala sub-province.12 Employment

in the tobacco export sector deserves further attention since the above
numbers point to an increase in the labor force.
The Ottoman Empire was an exporter of half-processed oriental tobacco,
which was treated in the workshops of international tobacco companies
and local independent merchants located around the Selanik and Kavala
ports.13 Here tobacco leaves were selected, sorted, and processed using
special techniques prior to exportation.14 The workshops, called maaza,
did double duty as processing ateliers and shops for the sale of the finished tobacco.15
In Ottoman labor history, the employment capacity of these workshops has generally been regarded as marginal, and the small and scattered labor force of the workshops has been viewed as an important factor
impeding the development of labor activism. The excessive womens
labor employed in those workshops has also, arguably, been regarded as
another handicap for the labor movement in late Ottoman society and
early Republican Turkey. The census figures of 1927 show that the working population was indeed fragmented, with 70 percent of all enterprises
employing fewer than four workers in the newly founded Republic.16 Documents with figures for the tobacco sector in the Selanik area in the late
Ottoman period are thus worthy of attention. Employment in the Selanik
province workshops was clearly well above this average, especially in
Kavala. Offical Ottoman documents show that during a strike in Kavala
in 1909 the number of striking workshop laborers was no less than 10,000;
it is further noted that these numbers represented around 200 tobacco
workshops. Thus in this incidence of labor activism, the average number of laborers per workshop stands at roughly 50.17 Clearly statistics on
employment in the tobacco sector from the late Empire are a topic that
12Annuaire Oriental, 1896; Annuaire Oriental, 1909. For the 1909 report tabacs en
feuille also included.
13BOA. DH.MKT., 1403/109.
14Tobacco processing methods vary according to the type, size, form, and structure
of the tobacco plants, which are known by the following names: 1Basma, 2Babal,
3Samsunkari, 4Samsun sra, 5skenderiye pastal-sra, 6zmir kalp, and 7Tonga. For
further information about tobacco processing, see Adnan H. Tapnar (ed.), The Tobacco
Affairs (Istanbul: State Monopolies of Turkey, 1939).
15BOA. Y. PRK. ASK., 227/86.
16Feroz Ahmad, The Development of Class Consciousness in Republican Turkey,
192345, in The Workers, ed. Donald Quataert and Erik Jan Zrcher, 78.
17BOA. Y.PRK. ASK., 227/86.
52
e. tutku vardal
merits further investigation; this is particularly true for the statistics on

the role of women laborers and incidences of activism.
In the following section, some preliminary observations are presented.
For example, it seems that women of this region, including Muslim
women, were able to join the tobacco labor force because of demographic and market conditions, while male laborers were drawn rather
less to workshops than to smuggling networks that were part of the robust
underground tobacco trade. Emigration from the province, banditry, and
conscription during a time of political turmoil and conflict in Ottoman
Macedonia may have also contributed to male labor scarcity. In addition,
market conditions, especially rising wages during a period of flourishing
tobacco exports, might have contributed to drawing women into this labor
force. Given that women were part of production in this significantly radicalized sector, they may well have participated in the labor activism of
the period.
Women Tobacco Workers of Selanik and the Feminization of Labor
As noted above, Ottomanespecially Muslimwomen have been relatively neglected in labor studies. Although the workforce of the Ottoman
tobacco sector and its political activism has been analyzed by several
authors, the massive employment of women in this sector has gone unnoticed. Womens illiteracy and invisibility in public life have been considered important handicaps to conducting research in this field.
In the late nineteenth century, women in the Selanik region constituted, in fact, a majority of the workforce in both industrial cigarette
factories and tobacco processing workshops. One single cigarette factory
of the central Selanik district owned by the Rgie Franaise des Tabacs18
employed about 300 workers, of which 83 percent were women. Since the
tobacco export sector was considerably larger than the tobacco industry,
the number of women workshop laborers may well have exceeded the
number of female workers in the cigarette factories. According to Donald
Quataerts estimates, tobacco workers in Kavala were fairly evenly divided
by gender, at approximately 7,000 to 8,000 women and 7,000 to 8,000
18Having received its monopoly over the internal tobacco trade in 1881, the French
Rgie des Tabacs set up cigarette factories in major port cities of the Empire, including
Selanik. The tobacco export sector was independent of this company.
53
men; but in the central Selanik district workshops, women were the over
whelming majority.19
The question is, then, who were these women and how and why were
they engaged in the labor force? First, Jewish women made up the largest share of the female labor force. One reason for this could have been
the monopolization of tobacco exportation by Jewish merchant families
such as the Allatini family, an important presence in the region. (This
monopoly did not, however, last; around 19081909, Greek and also Muslim merchants began to appear in the regions of Kavala and Drama.)20
In addition to the Jewish merchant factor, the drahoma, or dowry, the
responsibility of the bride, may have been another motivation drawing
single Jewish girls into the tobacco sector.21
Women from other ethnic communities also took part in the tobacco
labor force. Archival registers indicate that Muslim women workers,
believed to be the latest entrants into this labor force, worked in tobacco
workshops as early as 1887.22 In figure 1.2, Muslim women are recognizable by their white headscarfs. In the Ottoman Empire, clothing indicated
a persons ethnic and religious identity. Scarce notes that Turkish women
of Selanik took to the streets in the fashion of ferace and yamak. While
ferace was a kind of black out wear covering the whole body of a woman
from the head to the feet, yamak was just a white headscarf. In this picture Muslim women appear wearing yamaks.23
Several registers also show that the employment of Muslim women in
the workshops led to social discontent within the Muslim community;24
it appears that the honor of female Muslim tobacco workers also caught
the attention of the Ottoman administrators. In 1911, the Ottoman government ultimately declared that the employment of Muslim women in
the workshops did not violate Islamic rules, since their workplaces were
separate from those of the men and their wages were paid by female
supervisors.25 Interestingly, gender segregation at the workplace was an
issue in the Jewish community as well. It was not only Muslim women

20Annuaire Oriental, 1909.
22BOA. HR. TO., 207/58.
23Jennifer M. Scarce, Womens Costume of the Near and Middle East (London and New
York: Routledge, 2003), 100.
24BOA. Y.A.HUS., 327/22; BOA. Y.PRK. DH., 8/58; BOA. DH. D., 107/29.
25BOA. DH.D., 107/29.
54
e. tutku vardal
Figure 1.1.Men and women tobacco workers of different communities in the workshop of the Herzog Company in Kavala, Tobacco Museum of Kavala (c1900).
laborers whose honor was questioned, but also that of Jewish women, in
the context of gender mixing or separation in the workplace.26
In some cases, however, men and women laborers might have been
required to work in pairs because of the type of operations implemented
in the workshop. As Nollas indicates, they sat in pairs on rush mats on
the floor. Each pair of qualified workers had an unskilled woman worker
sitting cross-legged next to them to stack the chosen leaves into small
piles.27 This was mostly the case in Kavala. The job descriptions and the
visual material presented by Hadar suggest that this was not the case in
26Gila Hadar, Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonica: Gender and Family in the Context
of Social and Ethnic Strife, in Women in the Ottoman Balkans, ed. A. Butrovic and I. Cemil
Schick (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2007), 132133.
27Kamilo Nollas, Tobacco Factories (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2007), 2.
55
the tobacco workshops of Selanik, where the overwhelming majority of

the labor force was made up of women.
These incidences of public discontent at the idea of women working
are meaningful in that they coincide with the tobacco export boom, and
thus serve as another sign of the growing trend of female labor in tobacco
processing. The wage structure of the sector also favored this development: wages for women were lower than those for men, an attractive
point for employers. Yet they were higher than wages offered in other
female-intensive labor sectors, and thus attractive for laborers.
The entrance of larger foreign export companies into the tobacco market contributed to a rising demand for labor in 1890s. The Allatini familys
local export monopoly in Selanik, mentioned above, was broken in 1895
when the American Tobacco Company and the Austro-Hungarian Herzog
Company opened workshops in several districts of the region. Until then
the spinning industry had been a principle employer of inexpensive female
labor; this labor was transferred to the tobacco sector with the 1890s boom.
Indeed, a thread factory founded in late 1880s in Gevgili28 was reported
to have gone bankrupt because of nearby tobacco workshops. The wages
of the women spinners in Karaferiye (Veria) and Vodina (Edessa) were
up to three times lower than those of the women tobacco workers.29
These market-related conditionsdemand and wage levelsappear,
then, to have influenced a feminization of the tobacco workforce. Unavailability of male labor was perhaps another contributing factor. Smuggling
and contraband production were such extensive activities in the industry
that the Rgie was compelled to establish its own police force (kolcu), in
which it employed up to 7,000 men, to deal with them. This leads us to
speculate that a significant population of men may have been engaged in
the smuggler bands (ayngac taifesi) or the police force; impressive statistics on tobacco bootlegging activities reinforce this suspicion.30 Smuggling
and illegal manufacturing were so widespread that it was difficult to find
28Gevgili is one of the central districts of the Selanik province.

29Donald Quataert, Fabrika Bacalarndan Tten lk Dumanlar, in Selanik 18501918:
Yahudilerin Kenti ve Balkanlarn Uyan, ed. Gilles Veinstein, trans. Cneyt Akaln (Istanbul: letiim, 1999), 192.
30For further information on smuggling and contraband activities in the tobacco sector,
see Oktay Gkdemir, Osmanl Ttn Tarmnda Reji Kolculuu ve Sivil Direni, Toplumsal Tarih 190 (1999), 5158. See also Mehmet Temel, Osmanl Devletinin Son Dneminde
Ttn Politikas ve Artan Ttn Kaakl, Toplumsal Tarih 158 (2001), 411.
56
e. tutku vardal
cigarettes legally produced by the Rgie.31 According to one estimate, as

many as 20,000 people died in armed conflicts between police and smuggler bands in the year 1901.32 If we remember that tobacco workers in
Kavala at the beginning of the twentieth century numbered around 15,000,
it seems possible that the number of people in the illegal trade may have
been roughly comparable.
Among other factors leading to male labor scarcity in the period,
the struggle over Macedonia must have also attracted a considerable
male population into banditry. Yet another factor could be emigration
from the region, a phenomenon frequently encountered in the archival
sources. Kemal Karpat notes that emigration in the last decades of the
Empire was extensive and almost entirely made up of men. According to
his estimates, beginning in 1902, emigrants from Macedonia numbered
up to 15,000 annually. Fikret Adanr also observes that, between 1902 and
1906, emigration alone reduced the male labor force of Macedonia by 10
percent.33 For some time restricted, emigration was permitted starting in
189697; this coincided with the rise of the tobacco industry in the region,
in all likelihood increasing demand for labor. The by-laws of a tobacco
workers organization in Kavala and Drama34 state that one of the organizations purposes is to prevent the emigration of workers, especially
to the United States.35 In sum, a variety of economic and sociopolitical
conditions influenced the gender composition of the Selanik tobacco
workforce, making female labor more desirable and available.
The Politicization of Womens Labor in the Tobacco Sector
As noted previously, Selanik tobacco workers were among the most organized and active socialist groups of the early twentieth-century Ottoman
Empire. Indeed, it was the Tobacco Workers Union of Selanik that offered
the most support to the Socialist Workers Federation of Selanik, itself one
of the most prominent interlocutors of the Second International in the
31Tiine Oktar, Osmanl Devletinde Reji irketinin Kurulmasndan Sonraki
Gelimeler, in Ttn Kitab, ed. Emine Grsoy Naskali (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2003), 50.
32Gkdemir, Reji Kolculuu ve Sivil Direni, 54.
33Fikret Adanr, Makedonya Sorunu: Oluumu ve 1908e Kadar Geliimi (Istanbul: Tarih
Vakf Yurt Yaynlar, 2001), 44.
34The organization was named Ttn Amelesi Saadet Cemiyeti (Welfare Organization
of Tobacco Workers). Although it operated as one, it could not use the word union in its
name because of the 1909 Law on Organizations and the Strike Law.
35BOA. DH. D., 132/4.
57
Ottoman Empire. Given the extent of female labor in the sector, and the
fact that womens labor has generally been considered an impediment to
the political organization and politicization of labor, the impressive politicization of the tobacco sector is perplexing indeed.
Literature on the waves of strikes in the Second Constitutional period
offers valuable data on the number of the strikes, on the strikers themselves, and on labor organization membership. Here we find that Selanik
tobacco workers organized several strikes in the period between 1904 and
1914.36 Yet despite the fact that they constituted a considerable majority
of the labor force, women are not present in the account.
Kavalas Greek consulate reports enlighten us on the position of women
workers in the tobacco workers movement. As noted above, the sub-district
of Kavala was the heart of tobacco export activity within the larger region.
According to consulate reports, Kavala tobacco workers first known strike
dates back to 1879. The reports on the strike follow.
The peace of our city has been broken for 15 days because of the strike of
nearly 3,000 men and women tobacco workers demanding a wage increase.
As a result, tobacco workshops are completely closed. The situation, stemming from attempts to prevent processing of tobacco for the merchant has
become quite serious; yet initiatives of the local government and consular
authorities have been influential and the workers are expected to return to
work today.37
According to the same source, the next strike broke out in 1896 with workers again demanding wage increases. They left their workplaces in a general revolt, breaking windows as they went. Then Christian, Muslim, and
Jewish workers conducted an impressive protest march on the main road
and in the town square. More strikes followed in 1904, 1905, and 1908.
That of 1908 in particular can be viewed as a turning point in the history
of the women tobacco workers. Women were excluded from membership
in the Kavala and Drama tobacco workers union (Ttn Amelesi Saadet
Cemiyeti, Tobacco Workers Welfare Organization),38 since membership
was open only to qualified workers, known as denki, which were almost
36For a detailed account of the strikes, see ehmus Gzel, Trkiyede i Hareketi 1908
1984 (Istanbul: Kaynak Yaynlar, 1996).
37Yanns Vizikas, (Kavala: Tobacco Museum of Kavala,
1994), 12.
38Because the organization was multi-communal, mostly composed of Muslim and
Christian Orthodox members, it had a name in Greek as well: the
(Welfare Organizaton of the Tobacco Workers of Kavala).
58
e. tutku vardal
exclusively men. Thus interestingly, a union that was open to workers

from different communitiesChristians, Muslims, and Jews, and this during a time of considerable tension among Balkan nationalitieswas not
open to both genders.
In the 1914 general strike of tobacco workers of Kavala, Drama, and
Selanik, we see the open expression of discrimination against the women
workers. Denying women tobacco workers access to the qualified (denki)
positions was among the demands announced by the strike committee.39
Although women workers participated en masse in the 1914 strike, their
active presence in the movement was welcomed neither by their male
comrades nor by the newly established Greek administration.40
M. ehmus Gzel notes that a significant number of women were present among the strikers in the 1908 Drama and Kavala strikes as well. The
same source reports that women workers were active in the organization
committee of the 1908 strikes, carried out by 14,000 workers.41 It may, in
fact, be due to womens presence in the movement that the demands of
women workers were included in the Ottoman Socialist Party program
of 1910.42 Here, the prohibition of employing girls under sixteen and the
right to maternity leave were listed.43 Further research and more evidence
regarding womens agency in working class struggles is surely needed.
However, the above cases attest that working women of this period were
not as passive or submissive as may have been imagined.
The question is, then, what factors led to womens politicization in the
tobacco sector? It seems that, overall, conditions favoring this politicization were not different from those of men, yet some pecularities of the
tobacco sector may also have contributed to their organizing efforts. First,
as Joshua Starr notes, the concentration of workers in a single large hall
(maaza) is naturally conducive to the emergence of a class-conscious
attitude.44 Second, tobacco labor was different from the textile sector in
that the nature of the work took women outside the domestic sphere.
Close resemblances between textile manufacturing and domestic labor of
39Vizikas, , 21.
40Efi Avdela, Class, Ethnicity and Gender in post-Ottoman Selanik: The Great Tobacco
Strike of 1914, in Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 18701930, ed. Billie
Melman (New York: Routledge, 1998), 422.
41Gzel, 1908 Kadnlar, 6.
42The Ottoman Socialist Party was founded by Hseyin Hilmi (or tirak Hilmi, taken
from the name of the journal he published) in September 1910.
43Gzel, i Hareketi, 91.
44Joshua Starr, The Socialist Federation of Saloniki, Jewish Social Studies 7 (1945), 325.
59
other kinds may have prevented a clear understanding of the notions of

paid work and workplace. That is, the development of spinning at home
for the market, also known as the putting out system, may have retarded
the development of the concept of workplace in the textile sector, as spinners may have failed to clearly draw the line between spinning as paid
work and spinning for family consumption.45 Indeed, tobacco processing
may have been one of the first jobs to take women of the region physically
outside their homes.
The proto-industrial production stages of the tobacco industry, as with
the industrial stages, facilitated the organization of labor in various other
ways as well. Tobacco processing starts in the field. The plant needs to
be harvested with particular care so that it can be processed properly
in the workshop and factory: workers line up in the field along a row of
tobacco plants, grouped hierarchically into four or five ranks according
to skill level. The first worker in the rowthe least skilled of his or her
group, generally a child, elderly person or unskilled womanpicks the
lowest leaves from the tobacco plant and places them near the plant. The
second worker picks the second level leaves of the same plant and places
them upon those already collected. The most skilled worker collects the
first-quality leaves from the top of the plant. Most tobacco workers work
seasonally, moving through the various stages of production. For example,
those picking the first-quality leaves are responsible for sorting and processing the same leaves in the workshop or cigarette factory.
This characteristic of tobacco production has two consequences. One
is that the hierarchical division of labor that is experienced earlier on in
the field continues and is reinforced through the further stages of treatment. Another consequence is that the tobacco workforce forms a body
of proto-industrial and industrial laborers differentiated not only by skill
but also along gender lines. Those who work on the first-quality leaves
were called denki, while those working on the lowest-quality leaves were
called pastalc. The denki was generally a man, while the pastalc was
most often a woman worker.
It does appear that women workers had reason to participate in
labor struggles not only as workers but also as women, as the changes
in the Ottoman Socialist Party program concerning woman workers
45For the impacts of the putting-out system, see Oya Sencer, Trkiyede i Snf
(Istanbul: Habora Kitabevi, 1969), 2749; Quataert, Women Households and Textile Manufacturing, 255270.
60
e. tutku vardal
make clear. However, in some cases ethnic cleavages appear to have

hindered this development. For example, in the 1914 tobacco workers
strike in Selanik, Jewish and Muslim women were at odds with each
other as strikers and strike breakers, respectively.46 Yet there are also
opportunities to search for initiatives bringing women workers together
from across ethnic communities; and the ethnically diverse workers of
Selanik province did indeed participate in common initiatives during
the Balkan Wars and World War I.47 On the eve of the Balkan wars,
Abraham Benaroya, head of the Socialist Workers Federation of Selanik,
together with his associates, abandoned the project of organizing as
separate ethnic groups, preferring to bring workers together in a federation, a unitary yet ethnically heterogeneous structure that opened a
new chapter in the regional labor movement. The dynamism of the new
policy soon manifested itself in strikes that broke out in the tobacco
and clothing industries in which Jews, Greeks, and Muslims acted as
one.48 Kavala and Drama also witnessed tobacco workers from different
communities organizing under the same roof. It should, therefore, be
questioned whether the women tobacco workers held a similar attitude
before World War I.
While labor organization and politicization processes were largely initiated by male worker leaders or intellectuals, their outcomes could be
highly influenced by how women laborers responded, constituting as they
did such a large mobile mass. Whether women, as their numbers grew,
then passed on into organized political culture in any way is another question; present evidence on womens agency in this context is preliminary at
best. It remains to be seen whether women workers contented themselves
with production or also adopted and became carriers of the socialist tendencies noted above. If so, these tendencies may even have traveled to the
successor states of the Empire through post-war migrations. For example,
work on the political activities of migrant tobacco workers from Selanik in
early Republican Turkey shows that these Muslim emigrants apparently
took up organizing within the Turkish Communist Party soon after reaching Turkey. Moreover, the gender breakdown and political affiliations of
46Avdela, Class, Ethnicity and Gender, 425.
47For further details on the joint initiatives of socialists from the different ethnic communities in Selanik, see Mete Tunay and Erik Zrcher (eds.), Osmanl mparatorluunda
Sosyalizm ve Milliyetilik (Istanbul: letiim, 2004), and also Mete Tunay, Osmanl
Ynetiminin Son Yllarnda (19091912) Selanikte Yahudi Sosyalizmi, Toplum ve Bilim 3
(1977), 129142.
48Starr, Socialist Federation, 330.
61
the tobacco labor force remained fairly constant throughout the early
Republican period.49
Focusing on economic and demographic developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this study draws attention to a female
profile different from that of the upper-class, intellectual Ottoman woman
well known to Ottoman womens studies. Data on womens participation
in the political activities of the tobacco workers of Selanik strongly indicates that laboring women may have constituted a category remote from
the stereotypes of women as voiceless, submissive members of Ottoman
society. More work is needed to explore the agency of this group; further
studies in this direction are likely to shed light on womens activities and
resistance to power.
49For further information on the tobacco workers of Selanik that migrated to Turkey, see Atilla Akar, Bir Kuan Son Temsilcileri; eski tfek sosyalistler (Istanbul: letiim
Yaynlar, 1989), and also Mustafa zelik, 19301950 Arasnda Ttnclerin Tarihi (Istanbul:
TSTAV Yaynlar, 2003).
62
e. tutku vardal
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Chapter Three
Working from Home: Division of Labor among Female

Workers of Feshane in Late Nineteenth-century Istanbul
M. Erdem Kabaday*
Fez production in late nineteenth-century Istanbul involved women laborers from the different ethnic communities of the Ottoman Empire. Based
on the wage ledgers of the state fez factory, this chapter focuses on the
female fez knitters working for this institution.1 This paper does not actually involve a numerical analysis of the wage ledgers but attempts to reach
conclusions on gender and the ethnic division of labor in the late Ottoman industrial workforce. After giving brief information on fez production
in general and at the Feshane in particular, I assess the role of knitters
ethno-religious characteristics in finding jobs and earning wages.
Fez
The fez had a symbolic meaning not only at the time of its introduction
but also at its prohibition in the 1920s. The introduction of the fez as the
*This article is based mainly on M. Erdem Kabaday, Working for the State in a Factory in Istanbul: The Role of Factory Workers Ethno-Religious and Gender Characteristics
in State-Subject Interaction in the Late Ottoman Empire, PhD thesis (Ludwig-Maximilian
University, 2008). The datasets on the earnings of Feshane workers are the main sources
of both this article on female workers as well as of the article, M. Erdem Kabaday, Working in a Fez Factory in Istanbul in the Late Nineteenth Century: Division of Labour and
Networks of Migration Formed Along Ethno-Religious Lines, International Review of Social
History 54, Supplement S17 (2009), 6990. These studies deal with the archival documentation accessible prior to 2008. In the meantime additional archival collections including
wage ledgers of Feshane factory have become available in the Ottoman archives. Thus
this study is an explorative attempt to construct and utilize empirical datasets on the
reimbursement of female factory workers in the late Ottoman Empire. Another recent
publication on female factory workers in the late Ottoman Empire is Glhan Balsoy, Gendering Ottoman Labor History: The Cibali Rgie Factory in the Early Twentieth Century,
International Review of Social History 54, Supplement S17 (2009), 4568. This work was also
published after the completion of the present article. In the future it may be possible to
compare the intertwined role of gender and religion in the employment practices of the
Ottoman state.
1Feshane-i mire in Turkish and henceforth Feshane.
66
m. erdem kabaday
official headgear in 1829 was part of the early nineteenth-century Ottoman

reforms under Sultan Mahmud II. After immediate implementation of this
new dress code, permanent (high ranking officials) as well as temporary
(recruits of the newly emerging regular army) members of military institutions and public servants were required to wear the fez. The introduction
of the fez carried great importance for ordinary subjects, who were discouraged from wearing traditional headgear, which were distinct to their
communal, religious or occupational backgrounds. Quataert argues that
the fez was introduced as a homogenizing status marker in the late Ottoman Empire.2 As an account from Izmir in 1847 depicts,
...now, the loose long robes of the East, and the turbans, the calpacks, the
caouks have almost entirely disappeared from the streets....The Armenians now wear the fezz or red cloth skull-cap, with blue silk tassel, like the
Osmanlees; and the Greeks, and all the Rayah subjects of the Porte, without
even excepting the Israelites, wear the same head-gear as the Mussulmans.
The fezz, like the bonnet rouge of the French republicans, is the great symbol of equality. But it is only a symbol, and the equality is only a theory.3
It is noteworthy that in 1925, almost a century after its introduction in the

Empire, the fez was forbidden in the newly formed Republic of Turkey.
This move was part of a modernizing drive, due to the Ottoman symbolic
value that people had come to attribute to this headgear.
As MacFarlene aptly observed in 1847, neither the fez nor the 1829
clothing law brought equality to Ottoman society. Nevertheless, unlike its
European counterparts, the dress code promoted by Mahmud II aimed
at homogenizing the visual appearance of Ottoman society and partially
achieved this goal.4 Leaving aside members of military and public services
who received their fezzes from the authorities, in general, consumers paid
equal prices for their fezzes regardless of their communal belonging. All
citizens of the Empire looked alike as they wore the fez. In the present
chapter, however, my focus is not on the consumption, but on the production of the fez as an industrial commodity. The main question I address
relates to whether producers of the fez at Feshane had equal opportunities to earn their living through employment there.
2Donald Quataert, Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720
1829, International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997), 403425. This is an in-depth
study on clothing laws of the Mahmud II period. See sources cited therein for the details
on the introduction of fez.
3Charles MacFarlane, Turkey and Its Destiny: The Result of Journeys Made in 1847 and
1848 to Examine into the State of that Country (London: J. Murray, 1850), 23.
4This important comparative perspective is provided by Quataert, Clothing Laws,
419420.
working from home
67
Beyond its political and ideological value, the fez had a considerable
economic importance. Following its declaration as the official headgear,
domestic production was far from satisfying demand. As a result, fezzes
were imported in large numbers from Tunis, France, and the AustroHungarian Empire. The classical accounts of Ottoman fez production5
falsely create the impression that the fez was non-existent in the Ottoman
Empire prior to its introduction by Mahmud II in 1829. However, a quick
search in the catalogues of the Ottoman archives (BOA) reveals that fezzes from Tunis and France were imported into the Ottoman Empire even
in the 1760s6 and the trade in Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne was embedded
in the Empires guild structure.7 The fez trade was so widespread that in
1799 traders from Tunis based in Izmir petitioned to limit the number
of licensed fez sellers to twenty.8 Given this vibrant market, in the 1830s
the fez reform presumably further triggered demand and the Ottoman
administrations response was large-scale domestic fez production by
a state industrial enterprise. This import-substitution industrialization
attempt was in accord with the Ottoman industrial policy of the time.
Indeed, the 1830s to 1860s witnessed the establishment and spread of
Ottoman state industrial enterprises that produced mainly for the needs
of the military.9
Domestic Fez Production at Feshane
In 1833 Feshane was initially established as a manufactory in Kadrga,
an Istanbul district close to the Topkap Palace,10 later it was moved to
5nder Kkerman, Trk Giyim Sanayi Tarihindeki nl Fabrika Feshane Defterdar
Fabrikas (Istanbul: Smerbank Yaynlar, 1988) is a good example.
6A selective compilation of Ottoman official documents on guilds in eighteenthcentury Istanbul based upon ahkam defterlers provides the first example of a regulation
for fez sales from 1759. Ahmet Kala and Ahmet Tabakolu, stanbul Ahkm Defterleri:
stanbul Esnaf Tarihi, vol. 1 (Istanbul: stanbul Aratrmalar Merkezi, 1998), 235236. For
fez imports to Izmir, see BOA C.HR 13/659 and C.KTS 32/1571.
7BOA C.BLD 131/6514 for Istanbul, C.KTS 44/2158 for Bursa, and C.BLD 99/4936 for
Edirne.
8BOA C. KTS 7/302.
9For an early but still informative study on this phase of Ottoman industrialization
attempts, see Edward C. Clark, The Ottoman Industrial Revolution, International Journal
of Middle East Studies 5, no. 1 (1974), 6576 and for a study on state factories based on Ottoman archival material, see Tevfik Gran, Tanzimat Dneminde Devlet Fabrikalar, in 150.
Ylnda Tanzimat, ed. H.D.Yldz, (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu, 1992), 235249.
10Wolfgang Mller-Wiener, Manufakturen und Fabriken in Istanbul vom 15.19.
Jahrhundert, Mitteilungen der Frnkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 33/34 (1986/87),
291n56.
68
m. erdem kabaday
Eyb, on the Golden Horn, where it still stands today. For centuries the
Golden Horn had been a traditional industrial zone. Therefore, it is not
surprising that during the nineteenth century there was a high concentration of state industrial enterprises on both shores of the Golden Horn.
Two important features of Feshane set it apart from other state industrial
enterprises of its time. First, it was one of the very few state enterprises
that outlived the Ottoman Empire. It continued to function as a state factory until 1986, when it was partially demolished and its main production hall was transformed into an exhibition center retaining the name of
Feshane.11 Second, it was the only Ottoman state factory which competed
for customers under free market conditions. Feshane fezzes were sold
to the public in factory retail shops at central locations in Istanbul, in
iekpasaj, Bitpazar, Kalpaklarba, Yeni Cami, Tophane, Osmanbey,
Beikta, and Uzunar.12 Combating imported fezzes was the initial aim:
in 1836, shortly after the workshop moved to its new location, the quality
of the fezzes of Feshane was advertised against its Tunisian rivals in the
official Ottoman newspaper Takvim-i Vekayi.13 The fez remained a political commodity until the end of the Ottoman Empire. It was the key item
of a 1908 political campaign, when Austro-Hungarian goods were boycotted as a reaction to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.14
Although the fez, as a traditional headgear, was long produced by artisans in the Middle East, with the establishment of Feshane, it began to
be produced by new methods. Nevertheless, the advent of the factory did
not mean a total mechanization of production. Fezzes were still knitted
by hand initially and then delivered to Feshane for further processing. Fez
knitting was a typical putting-out production. Fez production, therefore,
was well suited to proto-industry and to its principle form of production,
the putting-out system.15 This putting-out practice also characterized the
Austro-Hungarian fez industry, where rural female knitters performed
the earliest and key part of the production process. In Austro-Hungarian
urban centers knitting was prohibited to non-guild laborers. Therefore
11For more information on Feshane today see www.feshane.com.tr.
12BOA HH.FSH 12/26.
13The issue of 24 July 1836 quoted in Hamza akr, Trke basnda ilk Marka Rekabeti, Erciyes niversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstits Dergisi 16, no. 1 (2004), 2736.
14For a monograph on the boycott, see Y. Doan etinkaya, 1908 Osmanl Boykotu: Bir
Toplumsal Hareketin Analizi (Istanbul: letiim, 2004).
15For putting-out practices in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century see
Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
working from home
69
organized urban labor was an exception, yet in Vienna members of the

sock-knitters guild were allowed to take part in fez production.16 Thus the
female subjects in both the capitals of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
Empires were engaged in fez knitting.
Female fez knitters in Istanbul performed a typical putting-out activity, which was later integrated into factory production. Here we see a
conglomeration17 of different forms and modes of production within
one manufacturing process, which can be regarded as one of the characteristics of urban proto-industrial activity. In the nineteenth century,
Ottoman female workers, both Muslim and non-Muslim, were regularly
engaged in proto-industrial production, mainly in rural but also in some
urban settings.18
It is useful to take a closer look into this specific putting-out activity, which
was controlled, supervised, and remunerated by the Feshane administration. Once a week, after being cleaned and separated, the collected fleece
was distributed to female knitters at the factory. An eye-witness account
from 1836 relays a vivid picture of the wool delivery to the knitters:
After a delightful row from Galata, we landed at the celebrated pier of
Eyoub;...proceeded to the manufactory, which we entered by the womens door. As we passed the threshold a most curious scene presented itself.
About five hundred females were collected together in a vast hall, awaiting
the delivery of the wool which they were to knit; and a more extraordinary
group could not perhaps be found in the world. There was the Turkess with
her yashmac folded closely over her face, and dark feridjhe falling to the
pavement: the Greek woman, with her large turban, and braided hair, covered loosely with a scarf of white musin, her gay-coloured dress, and large
shawl: the Armenian, with her dark bright eyes flashing from under the jealous screen of her carefully-arranged veil, and her red slipper peeping out
under the long wrapping cloak: the Jewess, muffled in a coarse linen cloth,
16For a recent and interesting study on the Austro-Hungarian fez industry see
Markus Purkhart, Die sterreichische Fezindustrie, PhD thesis (Vienna University,
2006), 25. I would like to thank Markus Purkhart for enabling me to see his unpublished
dissertation.
17In his study on Viennese silk production Cerman defines conglomeration (in German
Gemengelage) as a continuous and simultaneous co-operative coexistence of different productive forms. Markus Cerman, Proto-Industrialization in an Urban Environment: Vienna,
17501857, Continuity and Change 8, no. 2 (1993), 281320.
18Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing, and Donald Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, and Textile Manufacturing, 18001914, in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting
Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. N.R.Keddie and B.Baron (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992), 172.
70
m. erdem kabaday
and standing a little apart, as though she feared to offend by more immediate contact; and among the crowd some of the loveliest girls imaginable.19
Lady Pardoe provides us with a typical Orientalist view of a scene from the
daily life of Istanbul. The appearance of women working for Feshane, their
clothing, manners, and even body language are portrayed in rich detail.
Lady Pardoes account might be questionable, exaggerated or biased, however it should not be dismissed.20 Miss Pardoe claims that there were about
500 female knitters receiving wool to knit in their homes and about half a
dozen clerks were registering the quantity of wool delivered. She also states
that the knitters were Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish girls. Those
female knitters do appear in archival documentation, maybe not as colorfully as Pardoe depicts, but as numerous and as diverse as she stated.
Figure 2.1.Payday at a handkerchief workshop at Urfa around 1900.21
19Pardoe, The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks, 1836, 3 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1838), 178180.
20See Yerasimoss preface of Miss Julia Pardoe, ehirlerin Ecesi stanbul: Bir Leydinin
Gzyle 19. Yzylda Osmanl Yaam, trans. B. Bykkal (Istanbul: Kitap Yaynevi, 2004) for
possible merits and pitfalls of Orientalist accounts on Ottoman Empire as historical sources.
21This photograph was taken by Sarrafian Brothers based in Beirut and belongs to the
collection of M. Paboudjian, Paris. It was reproduced in the catalogue of the exhibition
working from home
71
In a wage register presumably from 1871 the total number of knitters in

Feshane is given as 750.22 A possible increase from around 500 in 1836
to 750 in 1871 is quite likely, and Pardoes figure may well be realistic.
The knitters were indeed composed of Muslims and non-Muslims from
all three millets of the Ottoman Empire, just as Pardoe reported. Although
she bases her argument simply on the visual differences of womens
appearances, the wage ledgers23 also indicate that Muslims as well as nonMuslims were knitting fezzes in their homes. Before going into a discussion of the detailed information conveyed by the wage ledgers of Feshane,
I specifically assess the validity of the categories of gender and ethnicity
in writing labor history in general, and analyzing the division of labor in
Ottoman history in particular.
Working Class or Ethno-religious Division of Labor at Feshane?
International labor history, in its broad meaning, has been regaining
momentum in the last decades and labor historians question the central
role or the explanatory power of class as the dominant denominator of
laborers identity. It has been generally accepted that the term labor history has a dual meaning, a narrow and a broad one. Accordingly labor
history in the narrow sense refers to the history of the labor movements:
trade unions, cooperatives, and strikes, whereas the broad sense of the
term also refers to the history of the working classes: labor relations, family life, and mentalities.
Particularly, the assumption of self-evident working-class solidarity,
which the notion of class presupposes, was challenged when historians
began to consider other categories such as ethnicity, gender, and religion.
Among these categories gender was the most important competitor to
Trames dArmnie. Tapis et broderies sur les chemins de lexil (19001940) at the Museon
Arlaten, which was on display between 16 July 2007 and 6 January 2008 in Arles, France.
I am thankful to Suraiya Faroqhi for bringing this exhibition to my attention. The women
on this postcard are Armenian refugees working in an American mission run by Miss
Study, sitting at the desk and registering the payments at the center of the photograph.
Although these female workers in Urfa in 1900 seem to pose for the camera as a group, the
actual practice of receiving wages from a clerk could have been similar for the knitters of
Feshane in 1875/76.
22HH 18324.
23The wage ledgers cover about six months in 1875/76 with a minor gap, BOA HH
23110B (13.812.9.1875), HH 23108 (13.913.10.1875), HH 23109A (13.1012.11.1875), HH 23113
(13.1113.12.1875), HH 19152 (13.212.3.1876) and HH.FSH 12/26 (13.529.5.1876).
72
m. erdem kabaday
social class.24 Instead of focusing solely on class solidarity or any other

single identity, labor historians had to face the evident fact that workers,
as all human beings, had multiple and overlapping identities. They thus
needed to address the question why different social groups prioritized different possible collective identities at different moments.25 Specifically,
the transition of womens work from household to factory production
and the role of gender and sexual politics in this process proved to be an
important avenue for research in labor history.26 In the historiography of
the Middle East the impact of gender was felt with a delay, yet by now it
has definitely arrived.27
In the case of Feshane not only identities overlap, but also main categories or units of analysis well established in labor history. Gender was
undoubtedly the decisive factor, which determined the working places
and tasks. For example, no female worker was employed on the workshop
premises. Fezzes were knitted by women in their homes and delivered to
the factory as raw material for further processing, whereas men reworked
the items into final products.28 They also produced other goods under the
roof of Feshane, such as coarse cloth for uniforms. In other words, women
24See Marcel van der Linden and Lex Heerma van Voss, Introduction, in Class and
Other Identities: Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Writing of European Labor History, ed.
M. van der Linden and L. H. van Voss (New York: Berghahn, 2002), 139, for a good review
article on the historiography of labor history.
25Eileen Yeo, Gender in Labour and Working-Class History, in Class and Other Identities, ed. van der Linden and van Voss (New York: Berghahn, 2002), 7387. There are very
few monographs on Middle Eastern workers from this theoretical perspective. Exceptions
include Joel Beinin, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); John T. Chalcraft, The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other
Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 18631914 (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2004); and Donald Quataert, Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire: The Zonguldak
Coalfield, 18221920 (New York: Berghahn, 2006). A recent special edition of a journal on
Ottoman laborers edited by Donald Quataert is an important contribution to Ottoman
labor history from such a revised perspective: Labor History in the Ottoman Middle East
17001922, International Labor and Working-Class History 60 (Fall 2001).
26See Kathleen Canning, Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in Germany, 18501914 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 1619, for a discussion of
recent literature on the subject.
27Keddie and Baron (eds.), Women in Middle Eastern History, is an important contribution; Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, therein is especially valuable for the
gender perspective of Ottoman labor history. Later works such as Madeline C. Zilfi, Women
in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era (Leiden: Brill, 1997)
and Margaret Lee Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker, Social History of Women and Gender
in The Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999) are also exemplary in their
theoretical insights and depth.
28See Hlya Tezcan, Fes, Trkiye Diyanet Vakf slam Ansiklopedisi 12 (1995), 415416,
for brief information on the stages of fez production.
working from home
73
worked for the factory at home and men worked in the factory for their
households. The aforementioned wage ledgers list forty departments, in
which male workers were grouped and worked together. For male workers
there was no strict ethnic division of labor. Ethno-religious characteristics
of male workers were not a criterion significant for departmental employment policy. In most of the departments both Muslim and non-Muslim
males were employed. Female workers, on the other hand, were almost
exclusively non-Muslim. This high concentration of non-Muslims among
female fez knitters accords with the hypothesis that the division of labor
in the Ottoman economy was based on ethno-religious criteria, controversial though this assumption has turned out to be in other types of labor.
For decades an oversimplified notion of the ethnic and religious division
of labor has dominated and perhaps distorted research on Ottoman economic and social history. This view has its roots in the travelers accounts
and consular reports of Westerners about the Ottoman Empire. These
external observers introduced and strengthened the notion that the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire were mainly tillers of the soil and non-Muslim
communities were engaged in the various trades. This oversimplified and
abstract religious division of labor even involved a further sub-division of
labor among non-Muslim communities. Accordingly, Orthodox-Christians
constituted the bulk of merchants and traders; Armenians were the artisans, and Jews were the moneylenders of the Ottoman Empire. These
over-generalized views were mainly by-products of the Orientalist and
nationalist mindset of the nineteenth century, during which numerous
nation states emerged in the Ottoman territories and elsewhere. Newly
emerging nation states were born without national histories and in the
urge to create the latter ex post facto, ethnicity and religion were used as
units of division and at the same time homogenizers. Especially during
the second half of the nineteenth century these constructs of ethnicities
as dividing unifiers were rather dominant in the writing, as well as the
making of history. However, the term ethnic division of labor had not as
yet been coined.
One of the earliest uses of this perspective in studying Ottoman economic history dates from 1917.29 In fact, the division of labor emerged
as an economic category through the rise of factory production. Without
29A.J.Sussnitzki, Zur Gliederung wirtschaftlicher Arbeit nach Nationalitten in der
Trkei, Archiv fr Wirtschaftsforschung im Orient 2 (1917), 382407, cited in Cengiz Krl,
A Profile of the Labor Force in Early Nineteenth-century Istanbul, International Labor
and Working-Class History 60 (2001), 126.
74
m. erdem kabaday
highly specialized labor and the development of complex skills in production processes, no factory work would have been feasible. A well-known
example of the division of labor in economic literature is the work of
Adam Smith, based upon his observations from a pin factory.30 The factory is the venue of industrial production, where groups of workers specialize in certain tasks and the production process is divided into different
stages. In various departments raw materials thus are transformed into
final products. In this setting the division of labor is decisive for planning, performing, and controlling the production process. It is the key
element of factory production. A factory setting like Feshane provides an
ideal opportunity for assessing whether ethnic criteria determined the
division of labor.
Fez Knitters on Pay Day
In what follows, I analyze the remuneration of female knitters of Feshane
to find out whether the employees ethno-religious characteristics influenced their earnings. Obviously, there are limits to what we can deduce
from the wage ledgers, as the total number of knitters cannot be computed precisely. Since payment was based on the number of fezzes
knitted, only this figure was registered. In the absence of family names
and any other personal markers, it is almost impossible to differentiate
between two persons having the same name or to locate persons having
several work assignments. The wage ledgers provide very limited information about individual female knitters and registers contain only the
information necessary for the remuneration of each knitters production:
name, worker number, the type and total number of fezzes knitted, and
total earnings. Wage ledgers for knitters show a stable departmental organization for the given period, 13 August13 December 1875; 13 February
12 March 1876; and 13 May29 May 1876. For the first four months between
13 August and 13 December 1875 there were three different types of knitting: manual, mechanical, and using a new device (nevicad). In the last
two periods the new device disappears, but manual and mechanical
knitting continue. In order to increase the number of observations and
30Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed.
R.H.Campbell, A.S.Skinner, and W.B. Todd, vol. 1 (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,
1981), 1415.
working from home
75
deepen the dataset of female knitters earnings, six wage ledgers have
been integrated into one single database. This database constitutes a
matrix with 4,769 rows and 6 columns. Every individual entry per knitter
assignment is a row and on each row, information on knitting type, wage
ledger number, ethno-religious characteristics assigned according to the
knitters name, worker number, and the remuneration of that assignment
appear as separate column values.31
Using knitters names, we can compute the total number of working
assignments (4,769) and their distribution according to ethno-religious
categories such as Orthodox-Christian (oc: 1,959), Armenian (a: 1,921),
Muslim (m: 93), Jewish (j: 7), and unidentified non-Muslim females
(x: 789). The striking point here is the marginal involvement of Muslim
female knitters in fez production. They hardly constitute 2 percent of total
work assignments.
The ethno-religious division of labor among female workers of Feshane
was structurally different from the ethno-religious division of labor among
their male counterparts. In a monthly wage ledger from the same year,
1876, a total of 506 male employees were listed. There were 388 Muslim, 89 Armenian, 7 Orthodox Christian, and 2 Jewish male employees
at Feshane. The remaining 20 employees ethno-religious affiliation could
not be determined. The distribution in percentages in rounded numbers
can be seen in the following diagram.
a; 1921; 40%
x; 789; 17%
a
j
m
oc
oc; 1959; 41%
j; 7; 0%
m; 93; 2%
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113 and HH.FSH 12/26.
Figure 2.2.Ethno-religious composition of female knitters assignments.

31This data set and name lists are available from the author upon request.
76
m. erdem kabaday
The total number of Orthodox Christian male employees is surprisingly

low. Even if we assume that all of the unknown employees were Orthodox
Christians, their share in the total workforce would not exceed 5 percent.
This is striking. Although Orthodox Christians constituted a very important part of the population of the Empire and its capital, they are extremely
underrepresented in the Feshane male workforce. It is generally agreed
that the total number of Orthodox Christians in the service of the state
fell sharply in the aftermath of Greek independence. If we consider that
Feshane was not merely an industrial but also a military-political setting,
we can better explain the limited number of Orthodox Christians. In short,
the male workforce of Feshane consisted mainly of Muslims, non-Muslims
having but a minor share. Furthermore, among non-Muslims, Armenians
were over- and Orthodox Christians were extremely underrepresented.
Although a comparison of the ethno-religious divisions of labor for female
and male employees of Feshane is of interest, one should be careful in
assigning too much explanatory power to ethno-religious criteria.
Notably, the Feshane administration did not utilize the ethno-religious
characteristics of Ottoman subjects in registering their performances and
respective remunerations: for official purposes the Feshane employees ethnicity was not a distinct category. The ethno-religious categories created
here along the lines of the Ottoman millet system, i.e., Armenian, Orthodox
Christian,32 and Jewish are in fact hypothetical and solely serve the purpose
oc; 7; 1%
x; 20; 4%
a; 89; 18%
a
j
m
j; 2; 0%
m; 388; 77%
oc
x
Source: BOA HH 19151.
Figure 2.3.Ethno-religious composition of Feshanes male employees.

32I use the term Orthodox Christians rather than Greeks because it is difficult to differentiate between Bulgarian and Greek females in 1870s Istanbul solely on the basis of
their first names.
working from home
77
of assessing the validity of the thesis that the division of labor was governed
by ethno-religious criteria.
Admittedly, the total number of unidentified names in this dataset for
females is quite high and this fact jeopardizes the significance of any comparison regarding both the total numbers of fezzes produced and the wage
averages of different groups among non-Muslim knitters. On the other
hand, the names of Muslim knitters can most probably be determined
without a margin of error. The reason for that difference is a peculiar practice: the name of each and every Muslim knitter was followed by the titles
Hanm, Kadn or Hatun. Interestingly, without exception, all Muslim and
none of the non-Muslim knitters bore these titles, which signify respect.
Hence the unidentified names could only have belonged to non-Muslims.
Furthermore, fezzes knitted with nevicad constituted only a small fraction
of the total production.33 In sum, most of the fezzes were either knitted by
hand or with a wheel, and overwhelmingly by Armenians and Orthodox
Christian women. As we have seen, Muslim female knitters were almost
non-existent.
Thus, the dataset for female earnings can be organized around the two
major categories of Muslim and non-Muslim. First the ethno-religious categories a, j, m, and, oc can be replaced with religious categories; m for
Muslims and nm for non-Muslims. Second, due to the limited number of
fezzes produced by the nevicad device, the work assignments in this category can also be excluded. The distribution of the total number of fezzes
knitted and earnings respective to the two production types and religious
criteria are as follows:
Table 2.1.Fezzes knitted for Feshane according to the knitting type and religious
affiliation of knitters for a period of approximately six months in 187576.
Religion
non-Muslim
Muslim
Total
Wheel-Knitters (arh)
78,943
2,133
81,076
Hand-Knitters (el)
63,371
813
64,184
Total
142,314
2,946
145,260
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113 and HH.FSH 12/26.
33The total number of work assignments with nevicad amounts to just 85 items.
78
m. erdem kabaday
The most striking result drawn from the above table is the fact that fezzes knitted by Muslim females constituted a minute and almost negligible amount. Specifically, 2,133 fezzes were knitted by Muslim workers by
wheel and only 813 pieces by hand. In total, only 2,946 of 145,260 fezzes
were knitted by Muslim females, which is approximately 2 percent of the
total amount. Unfortunately we do not know how many of those approximately 145,000 knitted fezzes were processed into final products and sold
in the market or distributed to civil servants and soldiers. Nevertheless,
these figures should be close to the numbers of fezzes produced in the
factory. Statistics are not available on the size of the Ottoman fez market. However, since the fezzes of Feshane were only sold or distributed
in the domestic market and Feshane reached an annual production of
approximately 300,000 in the 1870s,34 and kept this level in 1885, we can
assume that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Feshane had a
substantial market share.35
Both the total number of work assignments and the actual number of
fezzes knitted by Muslims in the period are insignificant. This extreme
underrepresentation of Muslim females in the Feshane work force, and
their consequent marginal share in total earnings are surprising and need
explanation.
The above numbers indicate that there was no ethnic division of labor
but a gender-religious one. This paper argues that along with a gender-based
division of labor, where the potential female workers of Feshane were concerned, being a Muslim was a strong barrier against engagement in an urban
putting-out activity. On the other hand being a Muslim was seemingly more
advantageous for male workers than being an Orthodox-Christian.
Table 2.2.Earnings of fez knitters.37
Religion
non-Muslim
Muslim
Total
Hand
Average
Wage36
Hand
Subtotal
Wage
Wheel
Average
Wage
Wheel
Subtotal
Wage
Total
Earnings
60
38.9
142,580
1,829.3
144,409.3
35.8
38.3
78,943
2,145.5
81,088.5
221,523
3,974.8
225,497.8
Source: BOA HH 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113, and HH.FSH 12/26.
34Tevfik Gran, Feshane, Trkiye Diyanet Vakf slam Ansiklopedisi 12 (1995), 426427.
35BOA Y.PRK.ASK 25/32.
36Per work assignment.
37In kuru in decimals.
working from home
79
Unfortunately the number of studies on the industrial workforce of Istanbul in the nineteenth century is very limited. Specifically on women workers of Istanbul in the period there is only one publication available to
this day, whose author clearly states that our knowledge on putting-out
systems in Istanbul is so limited that it is impossible to gauge the extent of
womens participation in them.38 In spite of their central role in economic
life, we also know very little about the labor of women in the Ottoman
Empire.39 The only monograph on working Muslim women covers the
extraordinary, final years of the Ottoman Empire, 19161923. Actually, in
this study Karakla argues that the Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women introduced the idea of work among Muslim women
for the first time.40 This claim is rather an exaggeration, as the female part
of the Ottoman population naturally constituted a huge part of the rural
workforce all along.
It is plausible to argue that the notion of work differed for Muslim and
non-Muslim women; this differentiation applied to the female workers,
their respective ethnic/religious representatives, and their male family members and communities. We can assume that cultural codes or
gender-religion specific meanings of work differed between Muslim and
non-Muslim Ottoman subjects regarding the employment of women. Yet
it is not possible to answer important questions such as why and to which
extent the factory management or the state administration preferred to
employ non-Muslim female workers. What were the preferences of the
working women and to what extent did these preferences determine
labor relations within the factory?
All in all, it is evident that Ottoman women throughout the nineteenth
century, Muslim as well as non-Muslim, were active partners of a flexible
household division of labor. The numerical analysis attempted here shows
that ethno-religious categories alone did not determine either wage differences or the division of labor in Feshane. The numbers lead us to think that
ethno-religious categories intersected with gender distinction. Gender, religion, and ethnicity definitely influenced the prospects of Ottoman subjects
as employees of Feshane, nevertheless not as absolute categories but as
time- and space-specific factors in their interaction with another.
38Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, The Role of Women in The Urban Economy of Istanbul,

17001850, International Labor and Working-Class History 60 (2001), 148.
39Quataert, Ottoman Women, Households, 161.
40Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women, War and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the
Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women 19161923 (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and
Research Center, 2005).
80
m. erdem kabaday
Bibliography
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Twentieth Century. International Review of Social History 54, Supplement S17 (2009),
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Beinin, Joel. Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge
Canning, Kathleen. Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in Germany,
18501914. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Cerman, Markus. Proto-Industrialization in an Urban Environment: Vienna, 17501857.
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Chalcraft, John T. The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt,
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Clark, Edward C. The Ottoman Industrial Revolution. International Journal of Middle East
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akr, Hamza. Trke Basnda lk Marka Rekabeti. Erciyes niversitesi Sosyal Bilimler
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etinkaya, Y. Doan. 1908 Osmanl Boykotu: Bir Toplumsal Hareketin Analizi. Istanbul:
letiim, 2004.
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H.D.Yldz, 235249. Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu, 1992.
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Keddie, Nikki R. and Beth Baron. Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in
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Krl, Cengiz. A Profile of the Labor Force in Early Nineteenth-century Istanbul. International Labor and Working-Class History 60 (2001), 125140.
Kkerman, nder. Trk Giyim Sanayi Tarihindeki nl Fabrika Feshane Defterdar
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MacFarlane, Charles. Turkey and Its Destiny: The Result of Journeys Made in 1847 and 1848
to Examine into the State of that Country. London: J. Murray, 1850.
Meriwether, Margaret Lee and Judith E. Tucker. Social History of Women and Gender in the
Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Mller-Wiener, Wolfgang. Manufakturen und Fabriken in Istanbul vom 15.-19. Jahrhundert.
Mitteilungen der Frnkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 33/34 (1986/87), 257320.
Pardoe, Miss Julia. The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks, 1836. 3 vols.
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by B. Bykkal. Istanbul: Kitap Yaynevi, 2004.
Purkhart, Markus. Die sterreichische Fezindustrie. PhD thesis, Vienna University, 2006.
Quataert, Donald. Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 17201829.
International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29 (1997), 403425.
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(ed.). Labor History in the Ottoman Middle East 17001922. International Labor and
Working-Class History 60 (Fall 2001).
. Miners and the State in The Ottoman Empire: The Zonguldak Coalfield, 18221920. New
York: Berghahn, 2006.
. Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
. Ottoman Women, Households, and Textile Manufacturing, 18001914, in Women
in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, edited by N. R. Keddie
and B. Baron, 161176. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by
R.H.Campbell, A.S.Skinner, and W.B.Todd, vol 1. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1981.
Sussnitzki, A.J.Zur Gliederung Wirtschaftlicher Arbeit nach Nationalitten in der Trkei.
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M.van der Linden and L.H.van Voss, 139. New York: Berghahn, 2002.
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M.van der Linden and L.H.van Voss, 7387. New York: Berghahn, 2002.
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BOA: Babakanlk Osmanl Arivi.
HH: Hazine-i Hassa 18324, 19151, 19152, 23108, 23109A, 23110B, 23113.
HH.FSH: Hazine-i Hassa Feshane 12/26.
C.BLD: Cevdet Belediye 99/4936, 131/6514.
C.HR: Cevdet Hariciye 13/659.
C.KTS: Cevdet ktisat 7/302, 32/1571, 44/2158.
Y.PRK.ASK: Yldz Perakende Askeri 25/32.
part two
Education for Life:

Schools, Associations, and Curricula
chapter four
The Limits of Feminism in Muslim-Turkish Women

Writers of the Armistice Period (19181923)
Elif kbal Mahir Metinsoy
World War I and the Armistice period brought drastic change to womens
lives in the Ottoman Empire. In less than a decade, social upheavals due
to the war transformed daily life.1 These changes coincided with both the
weakening of the Empire vis--vis the European powers and an enormous
loss of Ottoman territories. The war brought women into the core of economic and political life, particularly as mobilization demanded womens
support and contributions. Ottoman women were called on to shoulder
many tasks on the home front due to labor shortages. This spurred many
women writers, most from educated middle-class families, to assert their
right to a voice in political and ideological matters.
In this period, marked by the demise of the Empire, many Turkish
women writers in the popular press supported feminist goals along with
strongly nationalist ideas which rejected Western imperialism while
emphasizing Ottoman and Muslim-Turkish identity. Numerous articles
fervently debated differences between Turkish and European women. Womens morality and clothing occupied a central place in these writings.
Another frequent topic, beyond the effects of the war prodding Ottoman Muslim-Turkish women to enter the labor market, was that of the
education of Turkish girls and their entry into professional life. The
relentless questioning of Muslim-Turkish womens place in society is all
the more thought-provoking in that their predicament was in many cases
discussed by women writers themselves. In the wartime context of these
developments in womens writings this research examines a representative
1Research on social problems in the Ottoman Empire during World War I is still very
limited. One of the main sources on this period remains Ahmed Emin, Turkey in the World
War (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press for
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Division of Economics and History,
1930). On social and economic problems of the period, see Zafer Toprak, ttihat Terakki ve
Cihan Harbi, Sava Ekonomisi ve Trkiyede Devletilik, 19141918 (Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi,
2003).
86
elif ikbal mahir metinsoy
s election of Ottoman Muslim-Turkish womens articles that covered a

wide range of topics that included culture, ideology, education, work, and
womens fashion and appeared in popular womens periodicals of the
Armistice period.2 I argue that although most women writers called for
the expansion of womens civil and social rights, they reproduced certain
patriarchal ideas even while defending their cultural, moral, religious, and
national identity in the context of war and foreign occupation. In other
words, I try to show that the national question, which became more acute
during the Armistice period, preceded womens problems and thus narrowed prospects for radical change in the sense of liberation and empowerment for Muslim-Turkish women.
Transformations in Ottoman Muslim-Turkish womens lives can be
originally traced to the longest century of the Empire, the nineteenth
century.3 With the age of reformation in Ottoman state and society, conventionally named the Tanzmt (Reforms) era, Turkish women were no
less affected by egalitarian reforms than other subjects of the Ottoman
Empire.4 The reforms, together with the fashioning of a modern state,
required the education of women and their entrance into social life, if to a
limited degree. One of the most important consequences of these developments was the creation of opportunities for the improved education of the
female population. As a considerable number of women came to be better
equipped intellectually, they were emboldened to write for the public in
larger numbers. Appearing under their real identity, however, could be
intimidating for many of these writers at the beginning of the Tanzmt
era. Thus most used pseudonyms like a literate woman or a school girl,
or the initials of their names, in order to conceal their identity.5
The first women writers in the Ottoman press were the authors of varakas (letters) sent to periodicals. Zafer Hanm, with her novel Ak- Vatan
[Love of motherland] published in 1877, is known as the first TurkishOttoman woman novelist. This first wave of Ottoman women writers
2On the physical appearance and lifestyles of Turkish women in the Armistice period,
see kbal Elif Mahir, Fashion and Women in the stanbul of the Armistice Period, 1918
1923, MA thesis, (Boazii University, 2005).
3For the reforms and transformations in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth
century, see Zafer Toprak, Modernization and Commercialization in the Tanzimat
Period: 18381875, New Perspectives on Turkey 7 (Spring 1992), 5770; and lber Ortayl,
mparatorluun En Uzun Yzyl (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2000).
4Ayegl Yaraman, Resmi Tarihten Kadn Tarihine: Elinin Hamuruyla zgrlk (Istanbul: Balam Yaynclk, 2001), 23.
5Zafer Hanm, Ak- Vatan, introduction, translation, and abridgement by Zehra Toska
(Istanbul: Olak Yaynlar, 1994), 11.
the limits of feminism in muslim-turkish women writers
87
was apparently reluctant to expose personal identity in the press due to

social constraints on their participation in such activities that had long
been seen as a mans domain. Nonetheless, a number of women writers
such as Aye Sdka (18721903), Fatma Aliye (18621936), Emine Semiye
(18681944), and Makbule Leman (18651898) succeeded in becoming distinguished figures whose names frequently appeared in the press of the
period.6
Indeed, the nineteenth century saw important developments in Ottoman womens writing. In this respect, Elizabeth Frierson emphasizes the
importance of the press, which between 1875 and 1908 reached the newly
literate public, enabling women to become more active as writers. This
expansion in the press occurred surprisingly in spite of the strict censorship imposed during the period, and gained momentum especially with
the efforts of Sultan Abdlhamid II in the educational domain.7
Traditionally, upper-class women in the Ottoman Empire were educated in the home. However, despite the censorship and repressive nature
of the Hamidian regime, with modernization efforts in the educational
system and the growing activities of the missionary schools, Muslim girls
and women from different backgrounds began to enjoy greater access to
public education up to the high school level.8 Against this backdrop, a
certain number of womens magazines appeared and served, in Friersons
words, as a forum for discussion among the new professional and skilled
working women of the Hamidian period.9 Given that the overall literacy
rate in the Empire was no more than 5 to 10 percent around 1900,10 educated women likely constituted a small minority living mostly in the capital or other urban centers.
6Zafer Hanm, Ak- Vatan, 712.

7Elizabeth B. Frierson, Mirrors Out, Mirrors In: Domestication and Rejection of the
Foreign in Late-Ottoman Womens Magazines (18751908), in Women, Patronage, and
Self-Representation in Islamic Societies, ed. D. Fairchild Ruggles (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2001), 180. For the importance of the press in the late Ottoman period,
see Ahmed Emin, The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by its Press (New York:
Columbia University, 1914).
8Franois Georgeon, Sultan Abdlhamid (Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi, 2006), 291.
9Elizabeth B. Frierson, Cheap and Easy: the Creation of Consumer Culture in Late
Ottoman Society, in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550
1922: An Introduction, ed. by Donald Quataert (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2000), 247.
10Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in
the Ottoman Empire, 18761909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), 107.
88
Womens education, which eventually increased the number of women

writers in the Ottoman Empire, was supported by liberal male intellectuals including Namk Kemal (18401888) as early as the 1860s.11 In time,
middle and upper-class women also began to actively contribute to this
objective by publishing articles of pedagogical interest, by granting scholarships and other financial assistance, by teaching in the various newly
opened institutions, and finally, by opening new ones themselves.12
The Second Constitutional period was further marked by an increase in
womens educational, publishing, and especially associational activities as
compatible with the now hegemonic discourse of liberation (hrriyet), fraternity (uhuvvet), and equality (msavat). Thus the political atmosphere
of the period did encourage greater public participation of women, if to a
limited extent. However, in many fields women still had to fight for their
equality, restricted as they were by traditional moral and gender codes.
This was a period when intellectuals from different ethnic backgrounds
and political ideologies could raise their voices under the banner of constitutional rights and freedoms.13 Middle and upper-class Turkish women
were among those who sought to benefit from the new liberationist wave
that animated the press.
As noted above, Ottoman womens publishing activities gained momentum from the late nineteenth century onward, primarily as a consequence
of developments in education in the late 1860s when the first womens periodicals were published in the Empire. The first periodical to be published
by Muslim women themselves was kfezar [A garden in bloom] in 1884.14
When the suspended Constitution was restored in 1908, womens publications thrived, with periodicals like Demet [Bouquet], Mehasin [Virtues],
and Kadn [Woman] starting to diffuse feminist ideas and championing
11 Elizabeth Frierson, Unimagined Communities: Women and Education in the LateOttoman Empire 18761909, Critical Matrix 9, no. 2 (1995), 65. Namk Kemal is not the
only author that looks forward to the emancipation of Turkish women. Many other male
intellectuals like emseddin Sami (Fraeri) (18501904), Ahmet Cevat (Emre) (18761961),
Celal Nuri (leri) (18811938), Dr. Abdullah Cevdet, Ruen Zeki, Tccarzade brahim Hilmi
(raan) (18801963), Said Halim Pasha (18631921), and Ahmet Rza (18581930) in
their writings promoted the socioeconomic and intellectual elevation of Muslim women in
the Ottoman Empire. See for example, smail Doan, Osmanl Ailesi: Sosyolojik Bir Yaklam
(Ankara: Yeni Trkiye Yaynlar, 2001), 90113.
12Nicole A. N. M. van Os, A Nation Whose Women Are Living in Ignorance: The
Foundation of the Milli nas Mektebi in Nianta, in International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World, Istanbul, 1215 April 1999, Proceedings (Istanbul:
IRCICA, 2001), 249.
13Orhan Kololu, 1908 Basn Patlamas (Istanbul: Bas-Ha, 2005), 20.
14Yaraman, Resmi Tarihten Kadn Tarihine, 39.
89
the education of Turkish women.15 Their writers were, however, neither

unanimous in supporting various feminist goals, nor did all of them even
use the word feminism affirmatively. Some, including those of the famed
feminist Kadnlar Dnys [World of women] (19131921) were well aware
of European womens movements and did not hesitate to use the concept
of feminism deliberately, albeit in the narrower meaning discussed by
Serpil akr.16 A majority of feminists, however, hesitated to use the word
feminism, preferring terminology of Ottoman-Turkish origin like hukuk-u
nisvan (womens rights). Furthermore, some writers of more nationalist or
conservative orientations rejected the word feminism altogether on the
basis of its foreign, European origin.
This article focuses on this relatively nationalist and conservative
group of women of the Armistice press. As noted above, because of the
low literacy levels, among all groups but particularly among women at
their time these constitute an extremely limited group of Muslim-Turkish
women. These women were able to defend feminist ideals before the public with the help of the relatively free and secular press following the
Young Turk Revolution of 1908yet they were far from holding clear-cut
feminist aspirations. Nationalism, religiosity, and traditional moral values peculiar to Ottoman Muslim familial and sexual life dominated most
of their writings. Undoubtedly, as stated above, this feature of Ottoman
Muslim-Turkish womens feminism was most likely a response to the political and social conditions of a specific period when the Empire was occupied by the European powers. It is thus unrealistic to compare feminist
discourse in Turkish womens writings of this period of national struggle
with the radicalism of European suffragettes whose problems concerning
offensive nationalism and war were dissimiliar. However, it should also
be added that especially during World War I, in those countries occupied
by the enemy such as France, women had similar nationalist concerns
that arose when the divide between the battle front and home front was
shaken by the military occupation.17 Furthermore, during the war years
even the suffragettes in Europe and the United States split up: some supported the war mobilization of their respective governments and others
15Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1993), 32.
16For the various names of the Ottoman Muslim Turkish feminist movement and
womens methods and strategies for liberation and empowerment, see akr, Osmanl
Kadn Hareketi, 110135.
17Margaret H. Darrow, French Women and the First World War: War Stories of the Home
Front (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), 56.
90
opposed it.18 In war conditions feminists were blamed as traitors for

defending womens rights rather than contributing to the war efforts of
their country.19 This tendency showed itself in womens writings during
and after the war as well.20 Under the influence of their nationalist feelings, related very much to the occupation of the Ottoman Empire, some
of the women writers studied in this article like Hlide Nusret (Zorlutuna)
(19011984) even abhorred the word feminist, thinking that those who
called themselves feminists were only imitating European women. All the
same, these women contributed remarkably to Ottoman womens liberation movement even by their presence in the press as role models, in addition to the moderate liberating ideas they propagated.
The present article focuses on the themes debated by Muslim-Turkish
women writers such as Nezhe Rikkat, Hlide Nusret, kfe Nihl (Baar)
(18961973), Gzde Ferd, Beyhn, and Zehr Hakk.21 Such periodicals
for Muslim women as Kadnlar Dnys [World of women] (19131921),
Hanmlar lemi [World of ladies] (19141918), Bilgi Yurdu I [Light of
the homeland of knowledge] (19171918), Gen Kadn [Young woman]
(1918), Trk Kadn [Turkish woman] (19181919), Gen Kadn [Young
woman] (1919), nci [Pearl] (1919) and its successor Yeni nci [New pearl]
(19191921), Hanm [Lady] (1921), Ev Hocas [Home teacher] (1923), and Ss
[Adornment] (19231924) were published during the war and especially
the Armistice period, targeting a literate female public with sufficient purchasing power. In these periodicals womens entry into the professional
life, the education of girls, and the dress codes of Muslim women were
18 Joyce Berkman, Feminism, War, and Peace Politics: The Case of World War I, in
Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory, ed. Jean Bethke
Elshtain and Sheila Tobias (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1990), 141.
19 For instance, American pacifist feminist Jane Addams, who won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1931, was labeled a traitor after the war. See Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 324325. In addition, see Kathleen Kennedy, Disloyal Mothers and Scurrilous
Citizens: Women and Subversion during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1999), 68.
20Thus Mary Augusta Ward (18511920) who was also an ardent supporter of the British
war propaganda campaigned against the suffragettes. See Mrs. Humphry Ward, Englands
Effort: Letters to an American Friend (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1916).
21 Two of these writers, Hlide Nusret (Zorlutuna) (19011984) and kfe Nihl (Baar)
(18961973), are also well-known literary figures of the early Republican period. However,
I could not find the biographies of the other four writers, probably because they did not
continue to write professionally.
91
three of the most fervently discussed issues.22 In addition, articles on

home decoration, etiquette, fashion, beauty, health, child care, and morality appeared frequently as well as poems and other literary works.
In order to appreciate the importance of the Armistice period for the
Ottoman womens movement, and therefore the main arguments of the
above mentioned women writers, it is imperative to understand the particularity of this period for Turkish women, who, by supporting the resistance became active participants of the nationalist struggle from 1919 to
1922. Women in Anatolia, where the war took place, as well as women of
the occupied capital city Istanbul were active in this resistance to some
extent. Muslim-Turkish women protested openly, attending a series of
public meetings to commemorate war martyrs and to protest the occupation. One of the most significant demonstrations against the occupation
was organized in Fatih, a conservative district of Old Istanbul in May
1919, where Hlide Edib (Advar) (18841964), an important female figure
of the nationalist movement, gave her famous patriotic speech.23 Later on,
in the Republican period, Hlide Edib and feminists like Nezhe Muhiddin
(Tepedelengil) (18981958) legitimized their demands for womens social
and political rights by emphasizing womens active participation in the
war and their contribution to the foundation of the independent republican state.24
In those years women were not only active in the press or in wartime
politics but also started to work outside the home in a variety of occupations, mostly due to the wartime impoverishment of their families in the
absence of husbands or fathers. The acceptance of womens employment
outside the home was, however, very difficult for Ottoman society, even
under miserable war conditions, since for many it represented the loss of
22The feminist discourse of non-Muslim women during the last decade of the Ottoman
Empire and the commonalities and conflicts between the views and discourses of different
ethno-religious groups need further examination. For parallel developments in the Muslim
womens press in post-Ottoman Egypt, see Beth Baron, The Womens Awakening in Egypt:
Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994).
23For many other elite or aristocratic women who supported the national struggle with
demonstrations or underground activities, see Nur Bilge Criss, Istanbul under Allied Occupation 19181923 (Leiden, Boston, and Kln: Brill, 1999), 118121. The social and economic
history of Istanbul in the Armistice period has yet to be studied by researchers; currently
there are only a couple of books on this issue. For some examples, see Clarence R. Johnson
(ed.), Constantinople Today: Or the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental
Social Life (New York: Macmillan, 1922); and Mehmet Temel, gal Yllarnda stanbulun
Sosyal Durumu (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl, 1998).
24See, for instance, Yaprak Zihniolu, Kadnsz nklp: Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadnlar Halk
Frkas, Kadn Birlii (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 2003).
92
the Empires power and cultural integrity. Ironically, the entry of women
into professional life was criticized by some writers in the womens press.
For instance, in Trk Kadn [Turkish woman], which was a nationalist
womens periodical, Nezhe Rikkat viewed the change in womens lifestyles and their entering the world of work as abnormal. In her article
entitled Erkekleme [Becoming male] she disapproved of those women
who regardless of their fragile natures walked boldly in isolated streets at
midnight, tussled with the police, raced after trams, blustered about in
the streets and plundered shops.25
According to Nezhe Rikkat, women had gone too far trying to imitate
men. She reviled women with university educations, arguing that the
daughters of her neighbors started to work as clerks in government offices
before learning cooking and basic housework. She was taken aback by
women who joined the army and spoke about politics out loud on the
streets. Since the new wartime developments in womens lives were not
generally welcomed by Ottoman society as a whole, Nezhe Rikkat was
not alone in these opinions.
Most particularly, the feminist goal of womens political emancipation, far from being accomplished when her article was published, was
despised by many others of her time. As a result, the press of the Armistice
period mocked womens demands for political emancipation (figure 3.1).
However, Nezhe Rikkats criticism went deeper. She appears have been
motivated by nostalgia for her youth, when girls waited at home playing
musical instruments and dreaming of their future husbands.26
Likewise, in the periodical Ss [Adornment], Hlide Nusret questioned
womens entry into work life.27 Although she acknowledged that many
women had no choice but to accept outside employment after experiencing losses in the war, she was still uncomfortable with this development.28
She stated that womens conditions were further aggravated by a growing
25Nezhe Rikkat, Erkekleme, Trk Kadn 13 (28 October 1918), 194195.
26Rikkat, Erkekleme, 195.
27Here Nusret plays with the first two words of the name of an institution founded
in 1916 for finding jobs for women, Kadnlar altrma Cemiyet-i slamiyesi (Society for
the Employment of Muslim Women), using the suffix ma in altr-ma in its sense as a
negation particle to imply do not allow women to work rather than the real meaning of
these words which is employment of women. Hlide Nusret, Kadnlar altrma, Ss
28 (22 December 1923), 34.
28For a much more detailed explanation of this argument and for the history of Muslim working women in the Ottoman Empire in World War I, see Yavuz Selim Karakla,
Women, War and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923) (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre, 2005).
93
Figure 3.1.On his knees, the man in this cartoon begs the woman to demand
anything she wants, as long as it is not political. Diken 56 (3 June 1920), 8.
94
pauperization, a famine stemming from bad harvests, wartime speculation and black market profiteering, and frequent fires that destroyed a
great number of houses during the Armistice in Istanbul; in sum, given
the many widows and orphans in poverty it was very difficult to imagine
the capital with its previous tranquility and prosperity. Hlide Nusret thus
concluded that economic difficulties had made it impossible for many
to continue their seclusion; if in times of prosperity it was possible to
consider a woman who wanted to work as abnormal, surely a woman
who longed to possess the rough and materialistic jobs of her man rather
than dealing with household duties could only be mad. On the other hand,
despite her strong belief in the importance of the womens traditional
duties at home, Hlide Nusret admitted that in the chaotic atmosphere
of the time, which forced women to work as soldiers, officers, accountants, merchants, and even street sweepers, womens efforts to earn their
living should be respected, especially those efforts of single women and
the poor. And those who criticized these honorable women could only be
considered empty-headed or pitiful. According to Hlide Nusret, everyone had to accept the changing status of women as there were no moral
alternatives for those who failed to find a husband. Ultimately, at the end
of her article, she reversed her earlier argument against working women
to actually support womens employment given the wartime conditions,
albeit halfheartedly.29 All in all, both society and women writers found
womens work life undesirable; it was ultimately accepted only for practical reasons. In times of poverty, it was better for women to work than to
become beggars, thieves, or prostitutes, the latter becoming the profession
of many women given the adverse effects of World War I in Istanbul.30
29Hlide Nusret, Kadnlar altrma, 34. The ambivalent feelings of Hlide Nusret (Zorlutuna) (19011984) concerning working women in the Ottoman Empire makes
sense after learning that she was also one of those women who had lost her male relatives
in the war and had to start working out of necessity. Starting her career as a teacher at
an early age, she was proud of her profession later, during the Republican period, and
claimed that she had always been destined for this profession. She also became one of the
well-known women writers of the National Literature wave in Turkey. Nesrin Tazade
Karaca, Edebiyatmzn Kadn Kalemleri (Ankara: Vadi Yaynlar, 2006), 153157.
30For the problem of prostitution and venereal diseases during the Armistice period,
see Zafer Toprak, stanbulda Fuhu ve Zhrev Hastalklar, 19141933, Tarih ve Toplum
38 (March 1987), 3840. During the war period prostitution became so widespread that
Ahmet Rasim, a contemporary Turkish novelist and journalist, depicted prostitution
and moral degeneration in one of his memoirs. For this book, see Ahmet Rasim, Dnk
stanbulda Hovardalk: Fuh-i Atik (Istanbul: Arba Yaynlar, 1992).
95
In this context, it is not surprising that Muslim women writers perceived

education not as an egalitarian and liberal practice but mainly as a means
to train and enlighten Muslim women while they retained their conventional status in the home. Although working women had to struggle with
societys patriarchal resistance, intellectuals overwhelmingly supported
the education of girls and women with the argument that these would
become the enlightened, patriotic wives and mothers of the future. At the
turn of the century similar ideas were popular in other Middle Eastern
countries as well, especially among intellectuals who embraced educated
motherhood and marriage as a means to the adoption of the disciplines
of nationalist thought and modern life.31 In an article in Ev Hocas [Home
teacher], a woman named Beyhn explained this:
The education of women must be thought of from two points of view: one
is the instruction in an art or craft, a profession in which to earn ones bread;
the other is training in home economics and managing the family. With
regard to the first choice we have to consider first of all the ability of our
girls to become employed in a profitable and honorable job as soon as possible and their ability to earn their own living. For in our time, especially in
Anatolia, millions of women have to work in order to survive.
Regarding the second choice, we have to prepare all young girlsin a
serious wayfor the responsibility of a family, and must educate them in
home economics. For in all probability, the majority of women will experience marriage, spousehood and motherhood.32
Despite this general support of women writers for womens education, in

certain articles it is possible to read between the lines: Ottoman society
regarded the education of girls up to the university level as a potential
moral threat. This was probably because those students, still unmarried
31 For example, see Afsaneh Najmabadi, Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran, in

Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 91125; and Omnia Shakry, Schooled Mothers
and Structured Play: Child Rearing in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt, in Remaking Women,
ed. Abu-Lughod, 126170.
32Kadn tahsli iki nokta-i nazardan dnlmelidir: Biri ekmeini kazanmak iin bir
sanat bir i talmi dieri ile idre etmek iin iktisd- beyt tahslidir. O halde birinci
kka nazaran gen kzlarmzn her eyden evvel krl ve nmslu bir meslek dhilinde bir
an evvel bir mevki shibi olmalarn ve ekmeklerini kazanabilmelerini dnmeliyiz. Zr
zamanmzda bilhssa Anadoluda milyonlarca kadnlar yaamak iin almak mecbriyyetindedirler. (...) kinci kka nazaran da btn gen kzlarsret-i ciddiyyedeile
vazifesine hazrlamak ve iktisd- beyt tahsl ettirmek lzmdr. Zr kadnlarn ksm-
azam teehhle ve bir zevce, bir valide olmaya byk bir ihtiml ile marzdurlar. Beyhn, Kadn Haklarnn Esirgenmesinden: Feminizm ve Terbiye-i Beytiyyeye Dair Bir
Mukaddime, Ev Hocas 1 (1 July 1923), 15.
96
at relatively advanced ages, could easily attract male attention. Feminist

writers tried to defend womens education unless it undermined social
norms, values, and the always important modesty of women. In this sense
it could be argued that the articles reproduced certain patriarchal ideas.
For example, in her article in Trk Kadn [Turkish woman] on the
physical appearance of female students titled Mekteplerde Kyfet
[Apparel in the schools], kfe Nihl, an important feminist figure of
her time, sought to describe the ideal schoolgirl. She claimed that while
thinking of especially the female students of the secondary schools and
universities, she imagined modest, upright, and spiritual young women
who were removed from all thoughts of vulgar pleasures, moving rapidly
toward exalted heights with ardent eagerness and spiritual enthusiasm.
She wrote that on the high and open foreheads of the young school girls
she saw the most sacred and most spiritual thoughts of humanity, comparing these girls to saviors who covered the darkness of life with their
light, who shattered the hideous and grinning teeth of ignorance, and
who, bending down before the suffering, poured out compassion.33
In order to emphasize their sexual modesty, kfe Nihl distinguished
the schoolgirls she imagined and described as those presenting modest
choices in apparel and honorable behavior. She claimed that the girls
had such sublime thoughts that they would not deign to use the despicable assistance of the paints and colors that were the requirements of
debauchery. These girls had such innocence that while they walked with
all their simplicity, stateliness, and solemnity they spread purity into the
streets they passed and that their foreheads were so innocent that not a
single hair would dare to sin by falling upon them. She wrote, and probably hoped, that as a result of this upright behavior of the girls even the
most unruly men among the populace would feel ashamed before them
and respect their immunity.34
In contrast to this modest schoolgirl typology, kfe Nihl sketched
another one that she had seen in a high school she had visited. This girl
was a shame to the school she attended because she appeared with a
completely painted face and a pink low-cut blouse that could not be concealed under the araf 35 which was pinned at the level of the waist. She
33kfe Nihl, ctimiyyt: Mekteblerde Kyfet, Trk Kadn 7 (15 August 1918),
9899.
34kfe Nihl, ctimiyyt, 98.
35The araf is the traditionally black colored outdoor garment of Ottoman Turkish
Muslim women; it covers the body from head to foot and is made of a cloak and a skirt.
97
preferred to blame the mothers of such young women, arguing that it was
their responsibility to be passionately concerned with even the smallest movement of their girls. Mothers were responsible for preventing the
girls from coloring their eyes with kohl and curling their hair. Not doing
so was an unforgiveable error.36
As we understand from the writings of kfe Nihl, who probably
wanted to defend the right of education of Muslim girls in a conservative
society by emphasizing the schoolgirls modesty, female students attire
was mainly debated in moral terms. But morality was not the only concern of those who spoke against cosmetics and fashionable clothing for
women. Starting with the Tanzmt period, criticisms of Muslim women
adopting European fashions mainly reflected a patriotic spirit. Despite
this patriotism Turkish women formed an important consumer base for
the new European fashions.37 In this respect womens demand for foreign
apparel created a two-way tension: traditionalists were alarmed by the
decline in standards of modesty in womens clothing, while local manufacturers feared a loss of profit as the new fashions demanded less fabric
and time to sew.38 Indeed, in contrast to the old-fashioned ferace39 the
usage of modern forms of araf required less cloth as it gradually covered less and less. But this also created moral problems, especially during
World War I and the Armistice period when womens apparel concepts
changed rapidly. During World War I women who had become their families breadwinners dressed in accordance with new conditions that obliged
them to be practical above all. A significant number of women abandoned
the veil and their choice of dress that facilitated physical movement made
female faces and bodies much more visible on the streets. The disorder
and unrest of the occupation years further loosened earlier patriarchal
mechanisms that had restricted Muslim womens fashion. The shift of the
political center from Istanbul to Ankara during the national struggle and
the weakening of the central states control mechanisms contributed to
this development. Larger numbers of women showed themselves in the
36kfe Nihl, ctimiyyt, 99.
37Elizabeth B. Frierson, Gender, Consumption and Patriotism: The Emergence of an
Ottoman Public Sphere, in Public Islam and the Common Good, ed. Armando Salvatore
and Dale F. Eickelman (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2004), 109110.
38Frierson, Gender, Consumption and Patriotism, 110111.
39The ferace was another article of outdoor clothing Ottoman Turkish Muslim women
used with the traditional Turkish veil called yamak among urban women before the araf
became more popular at the turn of the century. It was generally made from broadcloth
for winter and from silk for summer with a lining of white satin.
98
latest European fashions with only some concessions made to the rules
of Muslim modesty. Many among them left the veil off even with their
outdoor attire, showing their faces for the first time to strangers. Thus
fashion became one of the most fervently debated issues, thanks to which
not only womens liberation but also their modesty and patriotism were
evaluated.
Preserving the Ottoman moral code in clothing was also important for
Hlide Nusret, whose article on the issue of working women was discussed
above. This time in another periodical, Gen Kadn [Young woman], published in Istanbul in 1919, she wrote against totally abandoning the practice of covering. She claimed that there was an important number of
young people who spoke against covering, and argued that it hindered
development.40 She rejected the notion, with all the fervor and frankness
of her faith in Islam, that womens covering was contrary to development.
Worried that the youth were indifferent to national values, she believed
that those who resisted covering their heads did so from ignorance.41
Apparently, for Hlide Nusret, writing in occupied Istanbul, the renunciation of traditional values meant opening the way for cultural imperialism and contributing to an erosion of social unity so important in the
occupation period. The decline in moral values was one of the main arguments she proposed against the abandonment of womens covering. She
warned the public:
For today, throwing away the araf is like running towards a bottomless cliff
with bound eyes. I know this as clearly as two times two equals four. Yes, for
a womanhood which has matured in relation to science and thought, being
covered can be meaningless, I admit. Nevertheless, does not our deplorable
moral condition of recent yearsseen by some as bright and progressive!
demonstrate that we have not yet attained this happy maturity?42
Hlide Nusret wrote that she observed the students in ns Sultnsi (girls
high school) and disliked the fact that their heads were uncovered while
40Hlide Nusret, Ahlak: Tesettr Meselesi, Gen Kadn 8 (10 April 1919), 117118. It
is interesting to note Hlide Nusret (b. 1901) was very young, around eighteen, when she
wrote this article.
41 Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 117.
42Bugn iin rflar atmak, nihyeti olmayan bir uuruma doru gz bal
komaktr. Bunu iki kere iki drt eder, kadar kat biliyorum! / Evet, ilmen, fikren tekemml etmi bir kadnlk iin tesettr, mansz olabilir; bunu itirf ederim. Fakat bizim daha
o mesd tekemmle yaklaamadmz son senelerdeki elmbelki de bazlarnca parlak
ve mterakk!!vaziyyet-i ahlkiyyemiz isbt etmiyor mu? Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 117.
99
they were surrounded by foreign visitors.43 She argued that the day she
observed this scene the school had nearly 600 students, of whom 300
were at the age of puberty and thus ready to take on the araf. Yet only
three of them had covered their hair. Her attempts to warn the students
were inconclusive due to their indifference. In her article, she blamed
the school administration for this situation and interpreted their attitude as an assassination of religiosity and national traditions.44 Hlide
Nusrets attitude toward them showed that even educated women could
have ambivalent feelings about rapid changes in womens appearance.
Women could find it intimidating to change their appearance. Some
who wished to have short hair and the modern, fashionable look of the
1920s went so far as to imitate the bob style without cutting their hair for
fear of angering men (figure 3.2).
National clothing and the covering of women interested women writers with a variety of viewpoints. In contrast to Hlide Nusret, Zehr Hakk
was totally against the araf, which she claimed had nothing to do with
Turkish nationality. Her emphasis on the national meanings of attire
marked a social and cultural transformation. The pursuit of the national,
and the search of the modern, was apparent in her article, Mill Moda
[National fashion] in the periodical nci [Pearl]. According to Hakk,
since Turkish women had of necessity entered into public life alongside
men, their clothing had to be modernized along with their ideas. She
claimed that forcing women to preserve their old clothing styles was
unacceptable in view of the fact that laws were made and modified as a
result of changing norms and living conditions, and should not predetermine peoples way of life.
However, Zehr Hakk set certain limits on these changes in clothing
habits. She argued that Turkish women should not directly adopt French
fashion because it was not suitable for them. She argued instead that
women should try to create a Turkish national fashion movement, just
as the Germans had done earlier. According to Zehr Hakk, Turkish culture had all the resources needed to produce a national fashion. Rallying
to this vision, Turkish designers invented national headgear styles as an
43The neighborhood of the high school is not cited in the article, but the school mentioned here is very probably the first high school for girls opened in 19131914 as stanbul
ns Sultnsi (Istanbul High School for Girls) which in 1915 was reopened in Aksaray as
Bezm-i lem Sultnsi. Three other high schools were opened later in the Istanbul suburbs
of Erenky, amlca, and Kandilli. akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi, 224.
44Hlide Nusret, Ahlak, 118.
100
Figure 3.2.Kesmeli mi, Kesmemeli mi? [To cut or not to cut?] Resimli Ay
4 (May 1924), 27.
the limits of feminism in muslim-turkish women writers 101
Figure 3.3.Balk Modalar, Resimli Ay 1 (February 1924), 32 [left];

Balk Modalar, Resimli Ay 2 (March 1924), 32 [right].
alternative to the Russian headgear style known as rusba (figure 3.3).

What Zehr Hakk proposed was not, however, a total rejection of European influence, which she claimed would be impossible and improper
owing to the continuing relations with Europe. Possibly following the
famous Turkish nationalist thinker Ziya Gkalp (18751924), she argued
that covering was not a Turkish institution, but had been taken from the
Persian and Byzantine civilizations. She supposed that no form of yamak,
ferce, or araf existed among the Turkish nomads and Turcoman tribes
and argued for the removal of the araf, claiming that it suited neither
the modernized life of the Turkish woman, nor the national fashion she
proposed.45 She was apparently not the only woman writer to search for
45Zehr Hakk, Mill Moda, nci 1 (1 February 1919), 45. For a more detailed explanation of ferce, yamak, araf, and pee (black veil), see Woman in Anatolia: 9000 Years
of the Anatolian Woman, 29 November 199328 February 1994, stanbul Topkap Saray
Museum, exhibition coordinated and catalog edited by Gnsel Renda (Istanbul: Turkish
102
womens contemporary dressing styles in ancient Turkish history, under

the influence of pan-Turkism.46
The search for national fashion emerged in a more aggressive manner in other cases as well. During the occupation years, Muslim hostility
toward the Greek community in Istanbul had many repercussions in daily
life. Starting in the nineteenth century, Greek-Ottoman women promoted
Paris fashions because they had worked as tailors for many middle-class
and elite women. In addition, even before the arrival of the Russians,
who exerted considerable influence on trends in womens clothing in the
Armistice years (figure 3.4),47 Greek women embodied a picture of the
latest fashions with their own appearance in districts like Galata and Pera,
which were populated by non-Muslim minorities. Indeed, Greek women
had more freedom in terms of imitating European styles since they were
not restricted by the limitations that Muslim women had to comply with.48
Particularly after the occupation of Izmir by the Greek army, anger toward
the Greek community began to affect the perception of Greek tailors, and
their influence on Turkish womens fashions was seriously questioned.
As a matter of fact, Muslim womens compliance with European fashions had been debated for a very long time for both economic and cultural
reasons. The minister of finance, Mehmed Cavid (18751926), and Ottoman
intellectuals like Fatma Aliye, Abdullah Cevdet (Karlda) (18691932),
and Fatma Fahrnnisa discussed this issue especially after the Young Turk
Revolution of 1908 in journals like tihd [Opinion] and Kadnlar Dnys
[World of women].49 Even before the beginning of the Greek occupation
Republic Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Monuments and Museums, 1993), 256.
See also Read Ekrem Kou, Trk Giyim, Kuam ve Sslenme Szl (Ankara: Smerbank
Yaynlar, 1967).
46For the intellectual influence of this ideology, see Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism:
From Irredentism to Cooperation (London: Hurst & Company, 1995).
47During the Armistice period many Muslim women imitated the head dress of Russian women called rusba (Russian head) and as a new fashion wore dresses with openings in the shoulders to reflect the motif of poverty. Well aware of the latest European
fashions, aristocratic Russian women were very influential on middle and upper-class Muslim women, opening shops and boutiques in Pera. Zafer Toprak, stanbulluya Rusyann
Armaanlar: Haraolar, stanbul 1 (1992), 72.
48For instance, see Zafer Toprak, Tesettrden Telebbse ya da araf veya Elbise
Milli Moda ve araf, Tombak 19 (April 1998), 5263.
49Islamists also published articles on the necessity of tesettr (being covered) in
periodicals like Srat- Mstakim [Straight road] and its successor Sebilrread [Straight
road]. Nicole A. N. M. van Os, Ottoman Womens Reaction to the Economic and Cultural
Intrusion of the West: The Quest for a National Dress, in Dissociation and Appropriation
Responses to Globalization in Asia and Africa, ed. Katja Fllberg-Stolberg, Petra Heidrich,
and Ellinor Schne (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1999), 300304.
Figure 3.4.The headgear style called Rusba of Russian refugee women in

Istanbul was very popular among Turkish Muslim women. Yeni Moda Hareketleri
Etrafnda: araf Bal, Sa Modelleri, Yeni nci 2 (July 1922), back cover.
in Anatolia, there were attempts by Muslim women to manage their own

tailor shops. Yet their efforts were futile, as they failed to find customers.50
In March 1924, after the founding of the Turkish nation-state, an article
50Yavuz Selim Karakla, Osmanl Hanmlar ve Kadn Terziler (18691923)-II, Tarih
ve Toplum 233 (2003), 5260.
104
in the periodical Resimli Ay [Illustrated monthly] published by the radical

and determined woman writer Sabiha Sertel (18951968), urged Turkish
women to sew their own dresses in order to put a stop to the practice of
calling Greek tailors into their homes. The periodical promised to send
the readers the patterns of the models seen in its fashion pages in return
for a small payment.51 Another magazine, Hanm [Lady], praised a Turkish fashion designer who had graduated from an academy in Berlin, and
advertised her skills and creations.52
The rivalry between Muslim and Greek women in fashion showed itself
most clearly in an article in Hanm under the title Modann Tecavzne
Uramayan Bir emsiye Saplar Kalmt [Only umbrella handles remain
unviolated by fashion]. This articles writer, Gzde Ferd, expressed her
abhorrence of the new fashions in umbrella handles imported from Paris.
The handles, in the form of Japanese statuettes or animals like elephants,
roosters, and snakes, seemed to her an abnormality. She voiced this opinion, arguing that their grandmothers, who once had wandered in the recreational areas of the Bosphorus and Erenky under lacework umbrellas
with elegant handles, would never have guessed that their granddaughters
could dare use such bizarre things.53 The author appealed to her readers
to reject this fashion and the new handles. She wrote that although one of
her sisters had seen an umbrella handle in the form of the head of a lion
in the hands of a chic lady in Beyolu she could not imagine any Turkish
woman who would imitate the beauty standards of Beyolu or those of
the overdressed Greek women. For her, the beauty of the Orient was
only apparent in the beauty standards and the good taste of the Turkish
ladies and their traditional clothing styles.54
Turkish Muslim womens ostensible emphasis on nationalist and moral
values overshadowed their agency in the womens movement and their
active participation in social life. The women writers studied in this article
51 Evlerinize Rum terziler armaktan kurtulmak istiyorsanz elbiselerinizi kendiniz
dikiniz. Yukarda grdnz elbise basit yaplmtr. Modelin patronunu arzu edenlere
meccnen gndeririz. Patronu almak isteyenler bir mektup iine stanbul iin , tara
iin be kuru koyarak bize mrcat etmelidirler. rf ve Elbise Modelleri, Resimli
Ay 2 (March 1924), 33.
52Gelecek nshamzda Trkln vcdlar ile iftihr ettii bir Trk moda (kreatris)
inin tecrbeli elinden km klk rf modelleri ner edeceiz kadn moda mtehasss
Berlin akademisinden mezn. Mustaf Kenn, Moda, Hanm 1 (1 September 1921), 16.
53Gzde Ferd, Modann Tecvzne Uramayan Bir emsiye Saplar Kalmt,
Hanm 2 (1 September 1921), 11.
54Gzde Ferd, Modann Tecvzne, 11.
were ultimately the more liberated women of their epoch who had access
to the means of expressing their ideas in the press. Writing in periodicals
gave them the agency to raise their voices as Muslim Turkish women.
Given an embracing national patriarchal discourse, what were, then, the
limits of womens support of the feminist movement in this context? It
is not difficult to see that these writers accepted the contemporary activism of Muslim Turkish women as extraordinary and hoped to conserve
the traditional standards of womanhood and women as good wives and
mothers elevated by education.
The social impact of the war brought a decline in womens economic
status due to the conscription of their male breadwinners along with a
decline in moral standards and the breakdown of state authority. These
factors were significant in leading women writers to embrace more nationalist and patriarchal ideas. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, together
with the loss of millions of lives and the fragmentation of numerous families, the concerns of women writers shifted from womens rights and liberties to the duties, responsibilities, and moral values which seemed to
boost them psychologically amidst the chaos.
Owing to wartime social and political upheavals with the demise of the
Empire, the feminist discourse of many Muslim Turkish women writers
remained limited. Writers like Hlide Nusret, in an explicitly nationalist
tone, openly blamed their few feminist friends for imitating European
women who, according to them, were bad mothers. Feminism was then
a word to be abhorred as it was regarded as foreign, individualistic, and
contrary to traditional family norms. The acceptance of patriarchal values
did not, however, prevent these women writers from legitimizing their
own position in society as wage earners. To put it another way, women
writers experienced a dilemma in their writings as their social status was
incompatible with their patriarchal and conservative discourse.
In sum, women writers attempted to preserve traditional norms in
their writings, while pointing out, criticizing, and sometimes approving
of changes in the lives of Muslim Turkish women. Most writers like kfe
Nihl, for example, attached great importance to education as an instrument of the transformation of the Muslim women into select, wise, and
fully-fledged personalities who would thus more likely become good mothers and housewivesif not necessarily liberated from social conventions.
Education, in their writings, was equated with liberation from ignorance
and socioeconomic restrictions, but at the same time with modesty and
morality. Writers like Zehr Hakk, too, encouraged changes in Turkish
106
womens attire with the creation of a national fashion, while accepting

the need for Muslim women to cover their heads. Obviously, the discourses
of women writers of the Armistice period were largely characterized by a
compromising attitude. Traces of a similar compromise can be found in
Turkeys early Republican feminism and its acceptance of the patriarchal
nationalist ideology of the Kemalist regime.

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chapter five
Between Two Worlds: Education and Acculturation

of Ottoman Jewish Women
Rachel Simon
Jewish women in the Ottoman Empire were doubly marginalized: as members of a religious minority spread throughout the territory and as the
less publicly dominant component of their community. Womens position
in Ottoman Jewry was shaped by Jewish law and traditions, which were
influenced for centuries by the surrounding Muslim society as well as by
growing Western intervention, coupled with local circumstances such as
geographic location, urban or rural environment, and economic conditions. This paper is based on numerous primary archival sources dealing
with Libya,1 complemented with published contemporaneous sources and
new studies related to all regions of the Empire. It examines the extent
to which gender relations and the position of women in Ottoman Jewry
changed toward the end of the Ottoman period, namely, from the midnineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, and what
forces were involved in these processes.2
During most of the period under review, the fifteenth century to the
early twentieth century, there was a clear division between mens and
womens worlds: women were in charge of maintaining the integrity of
the home from the inside, while men provided the external means for its
survival; men were also formal religious and temporal leaders. Men rarely
participated in household tasks, while most women were not income providers or leaders. Nonetheless, economic and social conditions as well as
individual disposition could lead women to take up roles outside their
prescribed sphere. Jewish men had contact with political and economic
elements of the gentile communitymainly male members of the Muslim majority, as well as those of the Christian minorities, while Jewish
1 Numerous primary archival and primary published sources of various origins are
cited in detail in my publications referred to below.
2Where post-Ottoman state names are used in this paper, they serve as regional references and do not indicate provincial divisions of the Ottoman Empire.
110
rachel simon
women rarely met with non-Jews, including Muslim women, except on

specific female occasions. This multiple sphere division had impacts on
behavior, culture, religious activity, and education, as well as on intergender relationsand vice versa.3
The divided worlds had implications for inter-gender contacts throughout life. Males were part of the womens world only as toddlers; partial
separation occurred when boys went to school, and culminated when
they left the home to work. As they grew older, the genders mainly met
in the family circle or in somewhat larger groups during special family or
seasonal celebrations. But even on these occasions, men and women were
often separated: in many regions men and women ate apart at home (even
as late as the 1940s in Tripoli, Libya) and celebrated separately during
major religious gatherings.4 When in the public domain, following Muslim
practices, Jewish women were for the most part covered and barely identifiable, although clothing restrictions were usually less strict for younger
girls and in rural areas (e.g., in Libya) due to the nature of agricultural
work.5 While the basic responsibilities of urban and rural women were
similar, the concept of what constitutes the household may not be, as this
was based on socioeconomic and geographic conditions that may have
differed between urban and rural settings. Most Jewish communities lived
in towns, but there were also rural Jewish communities, for example, in
Libya, northern Iraq (Kurdistan), and Yemen. Demographic conditions
seem to have expanded the physical space of the village: since Jewish village communities, as was the case in Libya, were small, most members
were in various degrees of kinship to one another, allowing women to
have freer contact with men. This required women to perform regular
duties outside the housenot only in attached gardens, but also far away
3For an analysis of these issues, see Rachel Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World: Jewish Girls in the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Jewish Social Studies
7, no. 1 (Fall 2000), 81108. On Jewish women in the modern Middle East and North Africa,
see Sara Reguer, The World of Women, in Jews in the Modern Middle East and North
Africa, ed. Reeva S. Simon, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2002), 235250.
4Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World, 83n96.
5Ibid., 83n97. In Libya, a special ceremony marked the time when a girl first began
to wear a scarf and could no longer act as a child and play with boys: Zevulun Buaron,
Minhage Hatunah bi-Kehilot Luv [Marriage customs in Libyan communities] (Hebrew)
(Netanyah: Hotsaat Hafatsat Moreshet Yisrael, 1994), 5. On veiling and dress in Libya,
see Rachel Simon, Change within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), 22, 2933. On Jerusalem, see Margalit Shilo, Princess or
Prisoner? Jewish Women in Jerusalem, 18401914 (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press,
2005), 6974. In general, see Reguer, The World of Women, 246.
between two worlds
111
from it. These activities also enabled women to mingle with women outside their family as well as with men, Jewish and even gentile.6
In addition to managing the house, rural Jewish women in Libya
also worked in agriculture, mainly in vegetable gardens attached to the
houses;7 they drew water and fetched wood. Each work day village girls
would draw water from a well that belonged to the Jews or to the whole
village.8 This made the village well a center of social interaction to which
men were attracted. Still, there was little opportunity for privacy in these
circumstances due to the large concentration of family and extended
family members of both genders. Yet these gatherings could still result in
matches, although parental approval for marriage was required. Wood for
cooking and heating was usually fetched at least once a week by groups
of women who left the village together for the day, unsupervised by men,
and often wandered far from village boundaries.9
Even before the nineteenth century, some Jewish women worked outside the home out of economic need or in order to perform various tasks
allotted to women. In the first category were maids and a small number
of merchants and peddlers, while the second group included midwives
and cosmeticians, mainly for brides. Another source of income was handicrafts practiced at home (e.g., knitting, weaving, embroidery). Even when
they were income providers, most women gave their earnings to male
guardiansfathers, brothers, or husbands.10 Yet throughout the period
women often had authority over their dowry, resulting in a certain measure of economic power.11 Older women, and especially widows, enjoyed
the most economic and personal independence, and could contribute
money to various causes of their choosing, including the construction of
synagogues, the founding of yeshivas,12 and the writing of Torah scrolls.13
6Simon, Change within Tradition, 29, 8586 (Libya).

7Simon, Change within Tradition, 8990 (Libya).
9Simon, Change within Tradition.

10Simon, Change within Tradition, 22, 5457, 88, 9193 (Libya); Marc D. Angel, The Jews
of Rhodes: The History of a Sephardic Community (New York: Sepher-Harmon Press, 1978),
9899; Reguer, The World of Women, 239240, 242.
11 Reguer, The World of Women, 239240; Simon, Change within Tradition, 22, 5859,
on negotiating the writing of the dowry into the ketubah (marriage contract) in Libya.
12Simon, Change within Tradition, 158159.
13Harvey E. Goldberg, Torah and Children: Symbolic Aspects of the Reproduction of
Jews and Judaism, in Judaism Viewed from Within and from Without, ed. H. E. Goldberg
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 107130.
112
rachel simon
These conditions affected the institution of marriage. Only in the village, as was the case in Libya, could young Jews of both genders meet
daily, and relatively freely, around the well where the girls gathered to
draw water.14 Until the late nineteenth century, opportunities for young
people to meet were much more limited in urban environments. Here,
apart from family gatherings, which were often gender segregated, special events in some regions enabled young people to meet.15 Much of the
matchmaking was conducted during informal visits of family and neighborhood women; the economic aspects of the marriage, however, were
usually arranged by fathers.16 After a decision was made, the couple was
generally unable to meet until the start of the wedding ceremony.17 Also,
marriages were often conducted at a young age, when brides were in their
early teens and the grooms somewhat older.18 The marriage of minors
even below the age of ten did take place, if rarely.19
The education of Ottoman Jewish women20 was part of a process of
change or, to be more precise, several intertwined processes of change
not limited to individual women but also affecting others around them.
14 Simon, Change within Tradition, 50, on meeting by the well in Yefren, Libya.
15 On Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 57, 10; Hayim Khalfon, Lanu ule-vanenu
[To us and to our sons] (Hebrew) (Netanyah: H. Khalfon, 1986), 277280; Simon, Change
within Tradition, 4748.
16 Reguer, The World of Women, 237. On Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 57;
Simon, Change within Tradition, 22, 5052, 58.
17 See Simon, Change within Tradition, 50, on Libyan brides covering themselves with
the veil of shame [mimzuza] and keeping their distance from the bridegroom. Due to
shyness toward their fathers and brothers, brides did not return to their parents home
from the miqveh [ritual bath] where they were examined by the grooms female relatives
for any physical defect. For similar reasons the bride did not meet with her father and her
husbands parents for an extended period, sometimes more than a month, following the
wedding. See Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 16 and Simon, Change within Tradition, 52, 54,
62. On a special ceremony enabling the prospective groom to view the bride in Libya, see
Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 7.
18 Reguer, The World of Women, 237238; Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World, 84n98. In Iraq, until the late nineteenth century, brides were often twelve or
thirteen years old, and even eleven. On the eve of World War I, the marriage age there rose
to fifteen, see Hayyim J. Cohen, The Jews of the Middle East, 18601972 (Jerusalem: Israel
Universities Press, 1973), 170171. On Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 3568. On
Libya, see Buaron, Minhage Hatunah, 5; Simon, Change within Tradition, 4647.
19 Simon, Between the Family and the Outside World, 84nn9899. On Iraq, see Cohen,
Jews of the Middle East, 170 (in the mid-nineteenth century). On Libya, see Simon, Change
within Tradition, 46 on the marriage of girls aged twelve in Amrus.
20On Ottoman Jewish female education in detail, see Rachel Simon, Jewish Female
Education in the Ottoman Empire, 18401914, in Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History,
Fifteenth through the Twentieth Century, ed. A. Levy (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, 2002), 127152; Reguer, The World of Women, 236237.
between two worlds
113
First it was the women themselves who changed with the accumulation
of knowledge acquired in school and as a result of encounters with others attending or managing educational institutions. But the changes did
not stop here, they impacted men in the Jewish community as well. One
should also note what was occurring in the surrounding populations,
Muslim as well as non-Muslim, which were not static either.
Social, cultural, and economic changes within the Ottoman Empire
as well as a growing involvement of Western elements, including Jewish citizens of European states from the second half of the nineteenth
century onward, brought inevitable change in the position and roles of
local groups and individuals. As we attempt to trace here, modern education and contacts outside the local Jewish community had a major role
in the transformation of Ottoman Jewish women and their aspirations.
Their social positions, though, may not have reflected this due to the slowness of change in social norms and perceptions, especially of those whose
privileged position stood to be affected, thus possibly creating conflicts
of interest between declared goals and their implementation. This was
because the governing powers in the community, composed solely of men,
were reluctant to broaden their ranks by relinquishing responsibilities and
authority to women and admitting them to their exclusive group.21
General Educational Conditions for Women in the Ottoman Empire
The female population of the Ottoman Empire received little or no formal education until the second half of the nineteenth century, largely due
to the absence of comprehensive public education in the Empire until
the reform period of the nineteenth century.22 Until this time the state
21 On Jewish education in the Middle East and North Africa, see Rachel Simon, Education in Reeva S. Simon, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (eds.), Jews in the Modern
Middle East and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 142164; Walter
F. Weiker, Ottomans, Turks, and the Jewish Polity: A History of the Jews of Turkey (Lanham,
MD: University of America Press, 1992), 193214.
22For general surveys on education in the Ottoman Empire, see Yahya Akyz, Trk
Eitim Tarihi (Ankara: Ankara niversitesi Eitim Bilimleri Fakltesi, 1982); Osman
Ergin, Trkiye Maarif Tarihi (Istanbul: Esmer Matbaas, 1977); Uur nal, II Merutiyet
ncesi Osmanl Rdiyeleri, 18971907 (Ankara: Gazi Kitabevi, 2008); Ahmet Cihan, Reform
anda Osmanl lmiyye Snf (Istanbul: Birey, 2004); Benjamin C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State and Education in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002); Ali aksu (ed.), International Congress on Learning and Education
in the Ottoman World: Istanbul, 1215 April 1999 (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture, 2001); Mehmet . Alkan (ed.), Education Statistics in Modernization
114
rachel simon
educated its Muslim male military and administrators, while the general
population studied in schools run by religious authorities and private educators. Formal female education was limited to the girls and women of
wealthier urban families; it involved religious studies and perhaps reading
and writing in coeducational schools up to the age of puberty. Girls may
have also benefitted from their brothers private tutors.23 Women could
be instructed by relatives or through some other private initiative but
this had little to do with academics as the focus was on household tasks,
religious instruction, and skills related to womens work. The few known
women scholars of the period were exceptions proving the rule.
It was a combination of political developments, economic needs, Western initiatives, and the emergence of a more supportive environment that
opened the way for female, including Jewish, formal education in modern institutions. State public schools for boys appeared in the Ottoman
Empire in 1839 and girls public schools gradually followed suit. The Public
Education Regulations of 1869 stated that girls aged 610 should be in
school, and women were preferred as teachers in these schools.24 Thus as
we shall see, although the number of formally educated women remained
lower than that for men, the former were the only segment of society
whose formal education was completely modern.
Foreign Schools
Foreign schools were established in the Ottoman Empire in order to
spread Christianity and as part of European attempts at peaceful penetration. Christian missionaries sought to strengthen their activities throughout the nineteenth century, aware that as a Muslim state the Empire
opposed Christian missionary activity among its Muslim citizens. As a
from the Tanzimat to the Republic (Ankara: Babakanlk Devlet statistik Enstits, 2000);
Necdet Sakaolu, Osmanl Eitim Tarihi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 1991); Seluk Akn
Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 18391908 (Leiden:
Brill, 2001).
23Stanwood Cobb, The Real Turk (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1914), 130132; William E.
Strong, The Story of the American Board (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 221; Bertold Spuler,
Die Minderheitenschulen der europischen Trkei von der Reformzeit bis zum Weltkrieg
(Breslau: Verlag Priebatschs Buchhandlung, 1936), 2.
24Akyz, Trk Eitim Tarihi, 108110; Somel, The Modernization of Public Education,
passim; Seluk Akn Somel, Sources on the Education of Ottoman Women in the Prime
Ministerial Ottoman Archive for the Period of Reforms in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, in Beyond the Exotic: Womens Histories in Islamic Societies, ed. Amira ElAzhary Sonbol (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 295306.
between two worlds
115
result, missionaries focused their efforts on Jews and Eastern Christians.

Jews were aware of the missionaries proselytizing goals and often avoided
their institutions; rabbis even excommunicated Jews who made use of missionary services. Due to the absence or poor quality of comparable Jewish
institutions, however, Jews did sometimes make exceptions and utilize
missionary services. Moreover, educational conditions in the Empire
prompted missionaries to invest in female education; they believed that
women seeking education would choose their schools because of the lack
of alternatives, thus enabling the missionaries to spread their influence.25
In order to attract Jews, missionaries usually refrained from overt proselytizing and, indeed, very few conversions have been recorded.26 This,
however, did not weaken the official Jewish communal opposition to the
missionaries, which were seen as exploiting economic difficulties and
womens need for waged work. For example, in 1848 missionaries established a school in Jerusalem to train Jewish girls and women in needlework and academic subjects. The main attraction of this institution was
the economic benefit it brought during a severe economic crisis which
worsened during the Crimean War.27 Once modern Jewish schools for girls
25On missionary and foreign educational activities in the Ottoman Empire, see Heleen
Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East
in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Somel, The Modernization of Public Education, 202204; lknur Polat Haydarolu, Osmanl mparatorluunda
Yabanc Okullar (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl, 1990); Uygur Kocabaolu, Kendi Belgeleriyle
Anadoludaki Amerika: 19. Yzylda Osmanl mparatorluundaki Amerikan Misyoner
Okullar (Istanbul: Arba. 1989); lber Ortayl, Some Observations on American Schools
in the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Public Administration Annual 8 (1981), 93110; Frank
Andrews Stone, Academies for Anatolia: A Study of the Rationale, Program and Impact of
the Educational Institutions Sponsored by the American Board in Turkey, 18301980 (Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1984). Abdul Latif Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine,
18001901: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1961); Abdul Latif Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 18001901: A Study of Educational,
Literary and Religious Work (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). On the education of Christian
minorities, see George A. Vassiadis, The Syllogos Movement of Constantinople and Ottoman Greek Education, 18611923 (Athens: Center for Asia Minor Studies, 2007); Arnon Grois,
Minorities in a Modernizing Society: Secular vs. Religious Identities in Ottoman Syria,
18401914, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 3 (1994), 3970; Sherman Lieber, Mystics and Missionaries: The Jews in Palestine, 17991840 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1992).
26Sydney S. Montagu, Jewish Life in the East (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1881), 138
139, on a British missionary school in Jerusalem.
27James Finn, Stirring Times, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856
(London: C. Kegan Paul, 1878), vol. 1, 145, 187, vol. 2, 7273, 102110, 409; Eliezer Maneberg,
The Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices in the Sancak (Eyalet) of Jerusalem under
Ottoman Rule, PhD thesis (University of Connecticut, 1976), 136, 302; Rachel Elboim-Dror,
ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael [The Hebrew education in Palestine] (Hebrew), vol. 1:
116
rachel simon
were founded, some Jewish families continued to send their daughters to

missionary schools, believing that some subjects, languages in particular,
were better taught there. Also food, clothes, and tuition were often free
of charge, and monetary support was occasionally provided.28 And some
Jews were ready to pay higher tuition fees for missionary education even
when alternatives existed.29
The Development of Jewish Female Education
Until the nineteenth century, Ottoman Jewish communities saw to most
of the cultural, social, and economic needs of their members. Education
was meant to prepare community members for participation in communal lifeyet women had no role in the public religious services in the
synagogue, a center of communal life. The all-male communal leadership did not regard teaching women to read Hebrew as a necessary function, much less formal education for women. However some institutions,
mainly private, did provide such education. Here, instruction was coeducational until the students were eight or nine years old, and focused on
Torah [Pentateuch] reading and prayers.30 Another institution was closer
18541914 (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1986), 7677, 80, 86; Tibawi, British Interests in
Palestine, 208 (for the 1880s).
28Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 176177; Strong, The Story of the American Board, 501;
Shlomo Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri ba-Arets u-Terumato le-Hahyaat ha-Lashon,
643674 [18831914] [The beginning of Hebrew education in Palestine and its contribution to language revival] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1979), 268; Yehoshua Ben
Arieh, Ir bi-Rei Tekufah: Yerushalayim ba-Meah ha-Tesha Esreh: ha-Ir ha-Atikah [A city
reflected in its times: Jerusalem in the nineteenth century: The old city] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1977), 294296; J. A. DeNovo, American Interests and Policies
in the Middle East, 19001939 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), 13n95 on
the missionary colleges for women. American missionaries had colleges in Istanbul, Mara,
and Izmir, and some Jewish women did attend them. Simon, Jewish Female Education in
the Ottoman Empire, 130131.
29Narcisse Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire: lAlliance Isralite Universelle (18601910)
(Paris: Librari Flix Alcan, 19111920), vol. 2, 205 (Beirut); Montagu, Jewish Life in the East,
134 (Jerusalem).
30For Iraq, see Cohen, The Jews of the Middle East, 113114; Avraham Ben-Yaakov, Yehude
Bavel mi-Sof Tekufat ha-Geonim ad Yamenu [The Jews of Babylonia from the end of the
Gaonic period to our days] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1965), 233; Reeva
S. Simon, ha-Hinukh ba-Kehilah ha-Yehudit be-Baghdad ad Shenat 1914 [The education
in the Jewish community of Baghdad until 1914] (Hebrew), Peamim 36 (1988), 54; Shaul
Sehayik, Temurot be-Maamad ha-Yehudiyot ha-Ironiyot be-Bavel mi-Sof ha-Meah ha-19
[Changes in the status of urban Jewish women in Babylonia from the late 19th century]
(Hebrew), Peamim 36 (1988), 81; Zevi Scharfstein, Toldot ha-Hinukh be-Yisrael ba-Dorot
ha-Aharonim, kerekh 5. Artsot ha-Yam ha-Tikhon, ha-Balkanim veha-Mizrah [The history
between two worlds
117
to day-care; toddlers could be sent to a maestra whose main duty was

to keep the girls quietnot even games or instruction were provided until
the late nineteenth century.31 Official Jewish leadership did not support
formal female education and made no attempt to compete with the missionaries in this area. Local Jewish and European individuals and organizations, however, did eventually seek to create alternatives to missionary
education, including female education.32 Thus it appears that missionary education served as an impetus to the founding and improvement of
Jewish girls schools by non-communal elements.
When public education began to appear in the Ottoman Empire in the
late 1830s, its impact on Jewish women was limited due to language and
religious barriers. At the same time, as noted above, missionary activities
were on the rise, with major efforts directed toward the education of girls,
including Jewish girls. This coincided with the emergence of non-communal, European Jewish educational initiatives, some in response to missionary penetration. Introducing cultural advancement was very important to
Westerners, that is, Europeans and especially French, British, German,
and Italian, as well as American missionaries, educators, and merchants,
but economic benefits were often of greater priority to local Jews due to
the growing poverty in many parts of the Empire. Thus rare for Jewish
women up till then, waged work became increasingly necessary in the
nineteenth century. Educational initiatives for women took advantage of
this situation with most girls schools offering some vocational training,
generally needlework, which provided girls with opportunities for remunerative work and thus improved their economic condition. Languages
and literacy in general, in addition to arithmetic, were considered important in themselves, as well as being prerequisites to upward social mobility. Families understood the opportunities that modern schools offered,
and these institutions used these needs to promote their own interests. If
at first many families focused on the economic benefits of formal female
of Jewish education in recent generations, vol. 5: The countries of the Mediterranean, the
Balkans, and the East] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1966), 35. For Jerusalem, where
they paid one shilling a week, see Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 120; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 100.
31 Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 127, 186; Moshe Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah liYehude Germanyah bi-Yetsirah uve-Maavak [Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in creation
and struggle] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bet ha-Sefer le-Hinukh shel ha-Universitah ha-Ivrit,
1971), 81; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 158; Haramati, Reshit haHinukh ha-Ivri, 340; Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 159.
32Rachel Simon, Education, 148152.
118
rachel simon
e ducation and accepted academic studies as part of a package deal, they

soon came to realize the intrinsic value of such studies for girls.33 Most
European Jewish educational initiatives for both genders promoted the
greater prestige attached to secular studies at the expense of Jewish studies,
causing a growing cultural rift in many Ottoman Jewish communities.
The first Jewish attempt at modern female education in the Ottoman
Empire appeared in Egypt in 1840. This initiative of French Jews resulted
in two short-lived girls schools in Cairo and Alexandria, emphasizing
handcrafts.34 Another French Jewish school was founded in Jerusalem in
1854, and exists to this day.35 The 1860s witnessed the emergence of the
Paris-based Jewish educational and philanthropic organization, the Alliance Isralite Universelle (AIU), in locations throughout the Empire, starting in Edirne and Aleppo. The following decades were characterized by
the growing role of the Alliance in Jewish female education. AIU schools
were established at the request of local Jewish communities across the
Middle East and North Africa, with boys schools usually preceding those
for girls.36 These requests came from regions lacking other modern
33Reguer, The World of Women, 242246; On Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 143180.
34Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 127; Jacob M. Landau, Jews in Nineteenthcentury Egypt (New York: New York University Press, 1969), 7374; Cohen, The Jews of the
Middle East, 109; Paul Silberman, An Investigation of the Schools Operated by the Alliance
Isralite Universsele from 1862 to 1940, PhD thesis (New York University, 1973), 33; James
Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt (London:
Luzac & Co., 1938), 272; Reguer, The World of Women, 243.
35Ben-Zion Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael bi-Shenot 56005641 (18401881)
[The Jewish population in Palestine in the years 18401881] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1974), 242244; Maneberg, Evolution of Jewish Educational Practices, 149
157; Daniel Carpi and Moshe Rinott, Yoman Masotehah shel Morah Yehudiyah mi-Triyest
li-Yerushalayim (617625) [The travel diary of a female Jewish teacher from Trieste to
Jerusalem, 18671875] (Hebrew); Kevatsim le-Heker Toldot ha-Hinukh ha-Yehudi be-Yisrael
uva-Tefutsot 1 (1982), 126, 128130, 153; Kurt Grunwald, Jewish Schools under Foreign Flags
in Ottoman Palestine, in Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman Period, ed. M. Maoz
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 168171; Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael,
67, 88, 104, 111114, 245, 292; Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 144145; Leven, Cinquante ans
dhistoire, vol. 2, 213; Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri, 1213; Albert M. Hyamson (ed.),
The British Consulate in Jerusalem in Relation to the Jews of Palestine 18381914 (London:
Jewish Historical Society of England, 19391941), vol. 2, 428, 502504, 514522, 583584; On
Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 151176.
36For more details on the AIU activities in the Ottoman Empire, see Leven, Cinquante
ans dhistoire; Andr Chouraqui, Cent ans dhistoire: lAlliance Isralite Universelle et la
renaissance juive contemporaine, 18601960 (Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 1965);
Grard Israel, LAlliance Isralite Universelle 18601960 (Paris: AIU, 1960); Aron Rodrigue,
Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Transition: The Teachers of the Alliance Isralite
Universelle, 18601939 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1993); Aron
between two worlds
119
(or Jewish modern) schools, at times specifically as a reaction and resistance to missionary activities.
The AIU founded over forty-five schools for girls throughout the Empire,
including vocational and mixed-gender schools; most were established
during the last twenty years of the Ottoman period. Many of these were
located in Anatolia, but gradually most major cities with a sizeable Jewish population were able to boast their own AIU girls school. AIU schools
operated under a single set of guidelines, often with standardized curricula emphasizing French language and culture developed by the Alliance center in Paris. The teachers were generally graduates of the Alliance
teacher college in Paris (ENIO), although teachers for Jewish subjects and
Hebrew were often local rabbis with no particular pedagogical training,
and were often reported by the AIU staff to be of inferior quality. These
rabbis were generally the only male staff in the AIU girls schools whose
principals, moreover, were often wives of the principals of the local Alliance boys schools.
Another important initiative in Jewish female education, mainly in
Palestine and Turkey, was that undertaken by the German Jewish educational and philanthropic organization Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden
(HV), which emphasized German language and culture. The HV started
operation in Palestine in 1904 and supported a number of coeducational
schools and kindergartens there. An important contribution of the HV
was the establishment of teacher training colleges in Palestine for males,
as well as for female kindergarten teachers. The existence of these colleges
prompted Hebrew teachers in Palestine to found their own teacher training colleges, including one for women in Jaffa.37
The involvement of Italy in Jewish female education in the Empire was
confined to Libya. It began in the late 1870s as Jewish merchants in Tripoli
sought Italian Jews to develop modern education for both genders. These
requests dovetailed with Italian political plans to colonize Libya. Thus,
although the impetus and realization were Jewish in origin, the Italian
educational network in Libya, emphasizing Italian language, literature,
and culture as well as general studies, became a major channel for political
Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Esther
Benbassa, Lcole de filles de lAlliance Isralite Universelle a Galata, in Premiere Rencontre Internationale sur lEmpire Ottoman et la Turquie Moderne (Istanbul and Paris: ISIS,
1991), 203236; Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue (eds.), A Sephardi Life in Southeastern
Europe: The Autobiography and Journal of Gabriel Ari, 18631939 (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1998); Reguer, The World of Women, 243244.
37For details on the activities of the HV, see Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah.
120
rachel simon
intervention by the Italian state. Initially the teachers were mostly Italian Jews; in the girls school they were gradually joined by local women,
some of whom were graduates of the local Italian school. Most students
in these schools were Jews with Italian citizenship from the mercantile
upper middle class. These families were already influenced by European
customs through their commercial activities; the schools thus served to
further strengthen the students Italianization and their assimilation of
European customs.38
Starting in the late nineteenth century Zionist influence in education
began to spread, especially in Palestinian schools such as in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Jewish villages. Zionist impacts on education were felt outside
Palestine as well, especially during World War I when Palestinian exiles in
Cairo and Damascus provided instruction to their own and local children.
Schools under Zionist leadership were known for their innovative pedagogical experiments, including the revival of the Hebrew language and
coeducation.39 Zionist initiatives also included teacher training, Hebrew
gymnasiums in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and the Betzalel College of Arts in
Jerusalemall coeducational institutions advocating a Hebrew revival.
Most modern Jewish schools in the Ottoman Empire provided only
elementary education, mostly for ideological reasons: the belief that too
much education would prevent students from becoming good workers,
farmers, housewives and mothers, and that overly learned students might
seek higher education and better jobs outside, perhaps far from, the
local community. Still, both the AIU and HV felt the need for some sort
of higher education. The AIU provided this through its teacher training
college (ENIO) in Paris, which had sections for both genders; its secondary education was otherwise limited to male vocational and agricultural
training. For its part the HV provided teacher training for both genders in
Palestine, and also planned to found a technical college in Haifa.
Attitudes toward Female Education
As organizations and individuals promoting Western education in the
Empire were mainly influenced by European educational trends, female
education was shaped more by this than by any internal changes in
38Simon, Change within Tradition, see the chapter on education.
39Scharfstein, Toldot ha-Hinukh be-Yisrael, 18, 25, 27; Simon, Jewish Female Education
in the Ottoman Empire, 137138; Rachel Simon, Education, 157160.
between two worlds
121
perceptions of womens roles in Ottoman, including Ottoman Jewish,

society. The main assertion was that modern education would make
women better mothers and housewives. Some advocated caution due to
the modernizer-traditionalist split within the Jewish community, and supported a curriculum that combined elementary reading, writing, arithmetic, and European and local languages together with Hebrew, prayers, and
scriptures.40
The AIU held that the example of the Bible, in which women are
glorified, had facilitated the introduction of female education aimed at
changing the customs of Middle Eastern Jews;41 it believed that education would free Ottoman Jewish women from their low social status. The
AIU formulated instruction specially aimed at raising women status, yet
with care so as not to compromise femininity, thus the strong emphasis on moral education, handcrafts, and household skills. As responsible
for childrens early education and the shaping of their character, the role
of girls as mothers of the next generation was emphasized; the Alliance
hoped that moral principles imbibed in school would be the basis for this
future character building role.42 The AIUs vision was broad, and regarded
the reformation of the manners, views, and knowledge of Ottoman Jewish girls as imperative, reflecting patronizing attitudes toward Ottoman
Jews.43 Its purpose was, explicitly, to inculcate habits of orderliness and
diligence in those who had been sluggish and untidy,44 in addition to
transforming women of low socioeconomic status into intelligent and
efficient working women of good behavior, conscious of their situation,
and capable of advancing the condition of their children.45 But AIU also
believed that progress in womens education should not go too far: girls
should not be overly learned, but aspire rather to expertise in handcrafts
and household management, able to both earn income and be of benefit at
home. Thus the Alliance opposed offering higher education or diversifying
40Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael, 212; Simon, Jewish Female Education in
the Ottoman Empire, 139142.
41 Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 36. The phrases in this paragraph were taken
from AIU regulations and correspondence.
42Chouraqui, Cent ans dhistoire, 190, 445446 (a 1865 proclamation of AIU goals,
including its position regarding female education); Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2,
3839; Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 8093; Silberman, An Investigation of the Schools, 63.
43Chouraqui, Cent ans dhistoire, 455; Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 5657.
44Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 178; Silberman, An Investigation of the
Schools, 113.
45Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 163.
122
rachel simon
the curriculum.46 Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did the
emphasis on feminine arts wane as the curricula of girls and boys became
similar or identical, especially in the growing number of coeducational
schools, mainly in Palestine.47
In some centers Jewish female education became a point of contention
in power struggles between the Jewish communal religious leadership,
on the one hand, and Jewish modernizing figures, often with commercial ties in Europe, on the other. In reports, AIU staff often complained
of the conservative attitude toward modern education, including female
education, of the Jews of Islamic regions in comparison to the situation
in Europe in general and in France in particular. The reports stressed that
Orientals only wanted their women to be proficient in household skills.
It mattered little if they remained otherwise ignorant; of greater importance was their husbands religious piety. AIU reports and commentators
agree on the overall picture of Orientals as tending to resist any modern
idea which might endanger the status quo.48 Thus the AIU opined that it
should not be hasty in offering female education following the opening of
boys schools.49
In fact, the most serious opposition to modern and female education
among Jews in the Ottoman Empire was that of Ashkenazi (Jews of European background) rabbis, mainly in Palestine, where many went so far as
to proclaim the excommunication of those connected with such activities.
These rabbis argued that women need not be educated since they were
exempt from the obligation to study the Torah, and were known to be
frivolous.50 Sephardim and Oriental Jews, however, were more inclined
to send their daughters to school; some of their religious leaders even
advocated female education.51 Many poor Jews, especially Sephardim and
Orientals who did not benefit from financial support from abroad, were
46Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 137.

47Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 114. Still, girls often studied Pirke
Avot [The ethics of the fathers] instead of the Talmud, and different crafts were taught to
boys and girls.
48Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, vol. 2, 235; Chouraqui, Cent ans dhistoire, 171; ElboimDror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 99; Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 8093.
49Ezra Laniado, Yehude Motsul mi-Galut Shomron ad Mivtsa Ezra ve-Nehemyah [The
Jews of Mosul from the exile of Shomron to the Ezra and Nehemiah Operation] (Hebrew)
(Tirat ha-Karmel: ha-Makhon le-Heker Yahadut Motsul, 1981), 188, relating to Mosul.
50Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael, 224, 228; Israel, LAlliance Isralite Universelle 18601960, 66.
51 Laniado, Yehude Motsul, 188, relating to Mosul.
between two worlds
123
more favorable toward female education because it provided girls with a

profession. European languages were another important point of attraction for Western schools in the empire. Many parents sent their children,
including girls, hoping that this would facilitate upward social mobility as
well as help them into more lucrative, higher status jobs.52
Women and Teaching
The entrance of Ottoman Jewish women into the teaching profession
brought a significant change in their status.53 Previously, with the exception of a small number of uniquely female work areas, women seeking waged work would do so only out of economic necessity and in a
restricted number of manual jobs. Womens employment in intellectualcultural professions marked their entrance into a realm hitherto reserved
for men. Moreover, a teaching career could result from free choice, not
necessarily poverty. Teaching was also quite different from the role of the
maestra, little more than a toddlers babysitter.
Several factors converged to result in a demand for female teachers:
first, parents and the communitys desire to keep girls in a mostly female
environment; second, the demand for instruction in female subjects
which men were unfamiliar with or reluctant to perform; and third, the
notion that women were better suited to teach girls and toddlers.
This increasingly popular career path necessitated the establishment of
suitable teacher training collegesat first these, too, were gender-based.
While up to this point teachers had often had to seek training outside
Ottoman territory, in the early twentieth century the HV54 and local Zionist teachers55 opened institutions in Palestine. Some HV kindergartens
also served as workshops for training kindergarten teachers. Many AIU
teachers throughout the Middle East and North Africa were from Ottoman lands; education thus made it possible for women to live and work
in many different locales.
52Simon, Jewish Female Education in the Ottoman Empire, 146147.

53Simon, Jewish Female Education in the Ottoman Empire, 144146; On Jerusalem,
see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 124125.
54The HV kindergarten teacher training college opened on 16 August 1909, in Jerusalem
with a two year program. See Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah, 142148.
55The Lewinsky Teachers Training College of Hoveve Tsiyon was established in Jaffa in
1908. See Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 312; Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh
ha-Ivri, 243.
124
rachel simon
Despite growing numbers of women in the workforce56 they rarely

reached leadership positions, even in fields like teaching, where their
numbers were significant.57 As with the recognition of their new professional status, womens involvement in the organizational structure of
teaching was slow to evolve. Women generally directed only girls schools
and kindergartens, rarely teaching older boys. In addition, the salaries of
female kindergarten teachers were lower than that of school teachers,
most of whom were men.58 Many male teachers opposed the appointment of women as principals of schools with male students and teachers.59
Women were also hardly if at all represented in Ottoman Jewish teachers
organizations.60 All this was a reflection of the resistance to change in
perception by both genders regarding womens suitability for leadership,
as well as their limited leisure time, since domestic female responsibilities continued to absorb much time outside the workplace.
Introduction to the Outside World
Missionary education offered more than just instruction, it also broadened the social and religious framework of its students and their families. It offered an environment in which Jewish girls, previously and for
the most part confined to their homes and to an almost exclusive Jewish
environment, came into close contact with foreign and local Christians
and some Muslims, mostly female. This was a first step toward building
relations outside the Jewish community, a process which led to mixed
cultural and social activities, even perhaps salaried work in non-Jewish
environments.
56For comprehensive information on occupations of Jewish women, see Cohen, Jews of

the Middle East, 92, 174175. On Jerusalem, see Shilo, Princess or Prisoner, 110124.
57Simon, Jewish Female Education, 145146; Simon, Change within Tradition, 197201
(Libya).
58Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah, 153.
59Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 160.
60Shelomoh Karmi, Telamim Rishonim ba-Hinukh ha-Ivri: Asefat ha-Morim ha-Ivrim
be-Erets-Yisrael u-Mekomah be-Toldot ha-Hinukh, 652656 [18921896] [First furrows in
the Hebrew education: The assembly of Hebrew teachers in Palestine and its role in the
history of education, 18921896] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1986), 130131, 195;
Rinott, Hevrat ha-Ezrah, 175; Elboim-Dror, ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri be-Erets-Yisrael, 212, 224;
There was one woman among the twelve gymnasium teachers in Jerusalem; see Yehoshua
Ben Arieh, Ir bi-Rei Tekufah: Yerushalayim ha-Hadashah be-Reshitah [A city reflected in its
times: New Jerusalem, the beginnings] (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhaq Ben-Zvi, 1979),
585586.
between two worlds
125
Contacts with gentiles occurred in Jewish schools as well. This happened most often when Turks, Arabs, and local and Western Christians
sought admission to AIU schools, but in the new Hebrew schools as well,
due to their quality as well as to the scarcity of schools in general.61 In this
environment that posed no threat of conversion, Jews could interact with
gentiles in ways that were impossible in more traditional society. In this
way school relations came to serve as a channel for external influence on
Jewish women.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw harsher economic conditions together with new employment opportunities for women with
formal school education.62 Earlier, as noted above, female wage earners
were mainly from among the needy who worked outside the home while
they were single; married women rarely did so. Most of such work was an
extension of that regularly performed by women or related to traditional
handcrafts. A large number of women worked as maids, for example,
mostly if not exclusively in Jewish households.63 Needlework and ironing
were also done in gender segregated workshops or at home.64
With Ottoman Jewish women entering modern schools in the second
half of the nineteenth century, female waged work continued for some
time to be performed at home, in a surrogate home, as in the case of
maids, or in gender segregated workshops,65 girls schools, or coeducational kindergartens. Only gradually, during the twentieth century, did
Jewish women start to enter mixed-gender workplaces as nurses,66 factory
61 Leven, Cinquante ans dhistoire, v. 2, 114 (Kuzguncuk: Turks, Greeks, Armenians), 243
(Haifa); Haramati, Reshit ha-Hinukh ha-Ivri, 88 (Jaffa, 1910); Benbassa, Lcole de filles, 207
(Galata).
62Reguer, The World of Women, 242. On the effects of external changes on womens
participation in the workforce in Libya, see Simon, Change within Tradition, 9495.
63Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 174 (Iraq); Simon, Change within Tradition, 9596
(Libya).
64Yosef Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit shel Yehude Iraq me-az 1830 ve-ad Yamenu
[Social-cultural development of Iraqs Jews since 1830 until our times] (Hebrew) (Tel
Aviv: Naharayim, 1989), 212217: in Iraq, maids were from poor families, and middle-class
women worked mainly at home in needlework, knitting, etc. Providing girls with these
professions was the main reason behind advocating female vocational education in the
twentieth century (on schools, see Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 221227); Cohen, Jews
of the Middle East, 174 (Iraq); Simon, Change within Tradition, 9597, 99100 (Libya).
65On girls processing ostrich feathers in Libya, see Simon, Change within Tradition,
99100; Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 96 (maids and workers in the fig
and valonia warehouses, Izmir).
126
rachel simon
workers,67 and office employees. Even then, women often worked in separate groups. Nonetheless, opportunities for unsupervised inter-gender
interaction did increase among Jews as well as between Jews and gentiles. Moreover, the opening of kindergartens and girls schools in urban
centers called for more female teachers and principals, causing temporary
migration from mainly Turkey and Morocco within the AIU educational
network.68 Then with the spread of state schools, especially in several
post-Ottoman states following World War II, Jewish women began to
work as teachers in non-Jewish state schools, thus again increasing their
chances to meet gentiles. Teaching was indeed a departure from tradition,
as it involved both womens literacy and formal education, and a growing
number of women sought to join the workforce not only out of economic
need but also in order to satisfy personal aspirations such as interest in
a particular field or the desire to serve the public; some regarded it as a
means for self affirmation, fulfillment, and independence.69 This tendency
was strongest in urban centers exposed to Western influences.
With these changes in education and employment, marriage practices
also changed, mainly in urban centers. Western schools would often seek
to keep girls in school, one of the reasons being to postpone the age of
marriage. The AIU was active in this trend starting in the late nineteenth
century, and worked to persuade communal leaders to approve of marriage only above a certain age.70 Some schools even offered financial
prizes to girls who attended school for three years and reached the age
of fifteen before marrying, though only a few received this prize.71 The
entrance of women into the workforce both delayed the age of marriage
and enabled young people of both genders, even of different religions and
nationalities, to meet and interact. As a result marriage candidates were
67Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 356357 on Jewish female textile factory workers
in Jewish enterprises in Baghdad. According to Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 92, many
Jewish workers in the textile and clothing industries in Iraq were women. On Libya, see
Simon, Change within Tradition, 101, 106. On Salonica, see Donald Quataert, The Industrial
Working Class of Salonica, 18501912, in Jews, Turks, Ottomans, ed. Levy, 206207.
68Meir, Hitpathut Hevratit-Tarbutit, 216 on Iraqi Jewish women in white collar professions, mainly medicine and teaching. On the experience of a female student at the AIU
teachers training school in Paris and on female teachers in the AIU network, see Rodrigue,
Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 4244, 4951. On the situation in Libya, see Simon,
Change within Tradition, 102104, 106.
69The occupational breakdown from Iraq is based on data gathered from immigrants
to Israel in 1950/51 and on the situation in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Aden, and Turkey, see
Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, 175.
70Rodrigue, Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries, 193 (Iraq).
71 Gat, ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisrael, 244; Montagu, Jewish Life in the East, 145.
between two worlds
127
able to personally know and even choose one another; marriage ages rose,
and engaged couples would meet to socialize, though parental consent for
marriage was most often required.
This study outlined important changes in education among Ottoman
Jews from the fifteenth century to the early twentieth century. During
most of the period education for men mostly involved academic religious
studies, while for women it meant primarily vocational training. Womens education was traditionally experience based, including household
tasks with spiritual elements limited to specific religious laws as applied
to their daily chores and personal hygiene as well as the passing on of
female oral tradition. Changes in the meaning of education were slow to
arrive: for a long period curricula for boys and girls were different, that of
the girls including many feminine crafts and fewer prestigious religious
areas. Only when coeducation became more common and less religious
did curricula come to be standardized. However, concepts of appropriately feminine and masculine subject areas persisted; the notion is not
entirely extinct even today.
Education can serve as an agent of change or as a guardian of tradition,
depending on institutional missions and those of the individuals standing
behind them. As a non-traditional concept from the start, Jewish female
education in the Ottoman Empire carried with it non-traditional messages but also the views of the founding organizations as well as those
of individual educators. The most non-conformist were these educators,
many of whom worked to change Ottoman Jewish society according to
a model that did not yet exist. European organizations, for their part,
sought to shape Ottoman Jews according to their own standards, which
they regarded as superior intellectually, morally, and socially.
Since traditional Jewish communal education did not include instruction for females, the latter developed solely in modern Western educational frameworks. As a result, although their numbers were fewer,
women were the only segment in the educated Jewish community whose
formal education was wholly modern. Education also allowed for closer
inter-sectarian, inter-class, and inter-gender relations, improved womens
economic positions, and enabled some to live and work far from their
birthplaces, though as individuals, not, likely, as spouses. In spite of all
these changes, womens social and political status was slow to change.
Examining these processes, it becomes clear that levels of transformation were not equal in their various phases, with some being faster and
deeper than others. Changes related to individual capacity and initiative
can be the most complete; for example, in academic studies or vocational
128
rachel simon
training individuals may reach advanced levels in a short time based on

personal abilities and the quality of instruction and resources provided.
It is another matter to consider the role a person might play in society,
since changes requiring acceptance by the society at large may be much
slower to develop as it is often difficult for erstwhile dominant elements to
acknowledge that those who were once regarded as inferior are progressing or have even surpassed their former betters. Members of underprivileged groups, such as women and minorities set apart by race, national
origin, or religion, may advance considerably as individuals, intellectually
and economically, but acceptance by the ruling society, as reflected in
social contacts and political power, may be much slower to follow.
between two worlds
129
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chapter six
Girls Institutes and the Rearrangement of the

Public and the Private Spheres in Turkey1
Elif Ekin Akit
Womens place in the complex equilibrium between public and private
became an important variable during the great transformations in the
Ottoman Empire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. European
and Ottoman, male and female intellectuals developed a concern for this
question in the Tanzmt period (18391876), with varying perceptions of
Ottoman households and harems producing differing results. The main
question posed during this period of modernizing reforms was if, and to
what extent, Ottoman women differed from their European counterparts.
The Europeans claimed an incommensurable difference, with Islam as the
primary reason. Ottoman intellectuals, in particular the Young Ottomans,
whose line of thinking was joined by intellectual women such as Fatma
Aliye (18621936), alternatively argued that Islam provided the requisite
space for Ottoman women to take on new roles in public life.2 In their
view, harems were ordinary households comparable to European ones.
Throughout the nineteenth century, as in the European private sphere,
harem life also went through changes such as the dissolution of extended
households and the introduction of Western interior decor. The meaning of public life also changed as new schools for girls were founded and
a number of Muslim as well as Christian women entered the working
world.
By the twentieth century, these developments were followed by a kind
of consolidation of womens roles in a new, republican mission. The Turkish Republic, founded in 1923, declared that it was no different from its
European counterparts, and struggled to establish a new form of modernity. Women were not only a part of this great transformation, they were
1 This essay builds on research conducted for my doctoral dissertation: Elif Ekin Akit,
Girls Education and the Paradoxes of Modernity and Nationalism in the Late Ottoman
Empire and the Early Turkish Republic, PhD dissertation (Binghamton University, 2004).
The analysis of the public and private spheres is new to this essay.
2Fatma Aliye Hanm, Terbiye-i ctimiyye, nklab 8 (1909), 114115.
134
elif ekin akit
at its very center. In 1928, the opening of the first girls institutes took
place; these aimed at raising women to become able citizens. These day
and evening schools throughout the land sought the widespread education of girls from different classes, and they redefined the domestic as an
arena for patriotic activity.
Yet the girls institutes symbolized a metamorphosis more than a rupture, for educational practices common in the wealthier Ottoman homes
and imperial harem had already been adopted in the girls industrial
schools starting in the late 1860s. From the mid nineteenth century on,
new public schools had taken on the education of girls as well as boys.
Yet girls industrial schools educated three times more female students
than their closest, more traditional counterparts, the girls rdiyes.3 They
also employed and educated students who produced clothing and other
materials, first for the army and then for the palace. After the declaration
of the Republic in 1923, the mission and scope of these schools passed to
the girls institutes, which aimed at a broad education in general subjects
as well as in domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
Thus the curriculum of the girls institutes was closely enmeshed in the
larger mission of transforming private space in the new Republic of Turkey,
as overlapping public and private spheres provided politicians opportunities to transform the private in order to reshape the public. In this sense
girls institute graduates were to give suitable content and appearance to
a new elite in its public and private spheres, both with the clothing they
produced, and in the homes that they decorated and maintained. These
schools thus put young women in an active, transformational role, belying Western perceptions of children and women of third world countries
as passive. Yet this was undertaken with the help of an invented concept,
the girl: a mother-to-be, imagined as a sexless student.
Through the girls institutes, then, the private sphere lost some of its
intimacy and was, moreover, linked to the modernizing mission of the
state. This conception of girlhood brought with it a new balance between
the public and the private, at the same time creating a sort of limbo
between childhood and womanhood. These developments constituted
an alter-nationalist discourse connecting Turkey to other nationalisms,
such as those of India and Iran, that challenged Western nationalisms.
3Mehmet . Alkan, Education Statistics in Modernization from the Tanzimat to the

Republic, Historical Statistic Series No 6 (Ankara: Prime Ministerial State Institute of Statistics, 2000), 37, 51, 5362.
girls institutes and public and private spheres in turkey 135
This essay analyzes the role of girls education in Turkeys transformation,

and contextualizes the Turkish case in such international connections.
The Home, the School, and the State
Throughout Europe in the eighteenth century, gatherings in private salons
contributed to the emergence of a bourgeois public sphere.4 As organizers
of and active participants in these meetings and even as representatives
of a new class, women gave direction to the shifting borders between the
public and the private, the private taking shape as a reflection, a shadow
of the public sphere.5 However, the Victorian era then created seemingly timeless definitions for the private sphere, the invented concept
of domestic confinement resting on presumably historical and religious
foundations; the definitions of public and private thus emerged as fixed
in terms of outside and inside, respectively.
The confinement of women that was now permanently attached to
the private sphere in Europe of the late eighteenth century acquired a
new dimension in discussions of the eastern harem. The mystified harem
made the private sphere in Europe appear more appealing because of
sharp geographical and cultural distinctions: no matter how confined, the
European lady was at the very least more independent than the occupant of the harem, the slave-wife. The crowded conditions in harems as
depicted by eighteenth-century Orientalist painters were another point of
consolation, by comparison, for Western women.
European conceptualizations of Ottoman Islam and the harem as its
reflection were harshly critiqued by Ottoman women such as Fatma Aliye
and Halide Edip (18841964). Both Aliye and Edip were well educated,
internationally connected writers and journalists.6 While Aliye was the
4Jrgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1989); Joan Scott, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).
5See Steven D. Kale, Women, Salons, and the State in the Aftermath of the French
Revolution, Journal of Womens History: Women and the State 13, no. 4 (2002), 5480; Karen
Offen, Womens Citizenship in the Twentieth-century World: States, Gender and Historiographical Strategies in Comparative Perspective, Journal of Womens History: Women and
the State 13, no. 4 (2002), 180191.
6Fatma Aliye Hanm, Nisvn-i slm ve Bir Fransz Muharriri, Hanmlara Mahsus Gazete 9192 (1896), 5; Firdevs Canbaz, Fatma Aliye Hanmn Romanlarnda Kadn
Sorunu, MA thesis (Ankara, Bilkent University, 2005), 35; Aye Durakbaa, Halide Edib:
Trk Modernlemesi ve Feminizm (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2000), 209; Grace Mary Ellison, An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1915), 18; Reina
136
elif ekin akit
daughter of an important Tanzmt era statesman, Ahmet Cevdet Pasha,

and Edip was from a more modest family, both were relatively well connected. Aliye is known as the first female Ottoman novelist, while the
latter was doubtless the most well known female figure and intellectual
of the period. Aliye argued that harems and the women in them were
of greater interest and complexity than Europeans perceived; they even
offered advantages over the European home. Edip as well, while opposed
to the idealization of the harem, argued that the social structures Europeans romanticized and denounced as harems were essentially not so different from European domestic arrangements.
Throughout the course of the nineteenth century harems were in full
transformation. For example, not only upper class women such as Aliye
but also women from more modest backgrounds increasingly learned
Western languages within the confines of such households; an increasing number of women also joined the labor force.7 The larger households employing dozens of slaveslike those into which Aliye and Edip
had been bornwere gradually dissolving, influenced, in the East as in
the West, by abolitionism.8 By the early twentieth century harems also
increasingly resembled European homes, at least visually, as Westernstyle interior decoration became popular.9
The spread of secular public education institutions, and young womens and girls access to them, emerged as a vehicle for a new relationship between Ottoman women and the state. The most widely known of
these schools were girls rdiyes (1859) as well as the teacher schools for
girls, or Drlmuallimt (1870). While developments in girls public education generally lagged behind those in education for malesfor example,
more than twenty years passed between the founding of boys and girls
rdiyes and teachers schoolsindustrial schools for both girls and boys
were established simultaneously, starting in 1860. As mentioned above,
industrial schools, created for the purpose of producing laborers for state
factories and combining factory work, orphan care, and education, were
Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (London: I.B.Tauris,
2004).
7Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1993), 3233, 47.
8Ehud R. Toledano, Late Ottoman Concepts of Slavery (1830s1880s), Poetics Today
14, no. 3 (1993), 499500.
9Carter Findley, Political culture and the great households, The Later Ottoman Empire,
16031839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 6580;
H. Ziya Uaklgil, Ak- Memnu [Forbidden love] (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitabevi, 1939).
the focal point of a new relationship between the state and the female
population.10 Here, young women with their newly gained capacities produced underclothing for soldiers and decorative items such as silk and
tassel braid for the palace. Boarding was also offered at these schoolfactories. The schools emerged from and reproduced certain educational
traits, such as embroidery and music classes, which were also prevalent
in elite households.
In 1928, with the formation of the new Republic, the industrial schools
were transformed into girls institutes.11 Although the curriculum and
same-sex character suggest continuities with education in the home, students in the institutes worked hard to earn the new and as yet unacknowledged honor of playing a part in producing a new republican society. At
the same time, as noted above, these educational practices also involved
a new understanding between state and society: adopting a Western style
of clothing and home dcor, young women became an important sector
of the population, part of a cultural revolution, and a focal point in official
discourses of the new Republic of the 1920s and 1930s.
The Izmir Girls Institute was one of the more salient examples of this
cultural revolution and deserves closer attention.12 The school building,
which formerly belonged to the Greek community, was turned into a Turkish primary school following the Turco-Greek War, in 1922. In 1923, the
schools director petitioned the state for permission to use it as a private
art school to produce baskets and artificial flowers. In 1927 hatmaking was
added to the school curriculum following passage of the Hat Law, which
mandated replacing Ottoman headwear with Western-style hats. Shortly
after, the school passed from private administration to that of the ministry
of education. The ministry added science courses to the curriculum and
then, in 1931, secondary education. A year later administration passed to
the ministry of culture, which declared the school a girls institute.13
The institutes were located in major cities such as Istanbul, Bursa, Manisa, and Izmir in western Turkey, Ankara in central Turkey, and Adana,
10Cemil ztrk, Trkiyede meslek ve teknik eitimin douu I: Islahhaneler, in
Hakk Dursun Yldz Armaan (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu Yaynlar, 1995), 427429.
11 Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 19378 Enstit Dergisi (1938), 1416.
12Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 1416. By cultural revolution I mean a transformation in
the public sphere through its equivalent in the private sphere as understood in the case
of China and retrospectively for Soviet internal colonization. See Michael David Fox,
What is Cultural Revolution? Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999), 181201; Sheila Fitzpatrick,
Cultural Revolution Revisited, Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999), 202209.
13Okulumuz ne idi ne oldu, 16.
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elif ekin akit
Trabzon, and Elaz in eastern Turkey.14 In this way they began to serve a
larger number of students than did the girls industrial schools. The curriculum evolved to include classic Western content such as mathematics,
physics, history, geography, and social sciences, although geographical
differences brought variations, such as the addition of intensive language
classes to the curriculum for Kurdish girls in the eastern provinces.15
Modernization of the new Republic was pursued not only through day
schools, but also through the education of working-class girls in evening
classes. Embroidery, hatmaking, fashion, and sewing classes were included
in these curricula as well, making the girls institutes the most widespread
form of girls education in the early years of the Republic. The number
of girls attending evening classes in Izmir was always greater than the
full-time student population; by 1937, full-time students numbered 2,000
overall, while once the institutes were opened in the eastern provinces
the part-time, evening school population stood at almost 8,000,16 thus
an education consciousness was inculcated in ever wider segments of
society.17
The Izmir Girls Institute regularly published yearbooks and a periodical informing parents and the public about their activities. While state
archives are indispensable to understanding the founding process of the
schools, these yearbooks and periodicals fill in the gaps in the archives.
According to the first yearbook of the institute, its foremost objective was
to raise students to be deserving and useful members of the new Republic.18
The publications also promised that, with the education she received, the
Turkish girl could serve as an able businesswoman if necessary. But the
institute raised her primarily to become a housewife who knew how to
look after the health and wealth of the family, and be a mother competent
in feeding and raising children.
The institute accepted students between eleven and sixteen years of age.
Only primary school graduates were admitted. Graduates were offered the
14Fatma Gk, The Girls Institutes in the Early Period of the Turkish Republic, Education in Multicultural Societies: Turkish and Swedish Perspectives, ed. Marie Carlson, Annika
Rabo, Fatma Gok (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2007).
15Elif Ekin Akit, Kzlarn Sessizlii (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2005); idem, Anadil ve
kadnlar, Fe Journal 1, no. 1 (2009), 2130, http://cins.ankara.edu.tr/anadil.html.
16193738 Enstit Yll, 48. While the early years of the Republic evinced many and
varied forms of public education, such as the nation schools that taught literacy to thousands of men and women of different ages, the girls institutes were still the most widespread form of girls education.
17Trkan Tkelar (6th Grade), 19367 Enstit Dergisi (1937), 12.
181935 Enstit Yll, 16.
option of becoming teachers by attending the most advanced institute in

Ankara, named after the prime minister, smet Paa Kz Enstits.19 Upon
graduation from this school, many young women no older than twenty
returned immediately to their alma maters as teachers. Thus they were
almost peers to their students. In the early years of the institution, states
one graduate, everyone in the Institute was a girl; the teachers were girls,
the people who worked there were girls.20
In these early years, the institutes enabled the state to show how it was
simultaneously the most compassionate and most devastating authority, in the words of historian Faruk Alpkaya.21 In this sense, redefinition
of the home as a place for educated women was intended to embed the
state ideology in domestic space. According to the magazine, the private
sphere as a product of a meaningless womanhood was worthless and
dysfunctional without state intervention.22 By stigmatizing the private
sphere, these schools declared themselves authorized to replace existing
relations with a new balance between state and society that was, in fact,
led by the state.
Girls new skills in producing artificial flowers, hats, and clothes semingly proved that these future women could produce a new ideology as
well. In one of the Izmir Institutes early yearbooks, a student commented
that the tasks of womanhood and motherhood were awaiting them whatever occupation she and her classmates might choose, and that they were
now competent to practice this knowledge at any time and in any environment; moreover, the novel techniques and principles acquired by the
first graduates were sure to distinguish them in society.23 The institutes
also aimed to make their students more efficient and productive regardless of their social status, and the ateliers of twelve or so workers were
an important, if secondary, means to this goal. The school magazine promoted the goods from the workshops through frequent advertisements
aimed at the wealthier students families and high-ranking members of
other educational institutions.24
Popular conservative local media celebrated the institutes in particular from the standpoint of their ideological accomplishments. Their
19 1935 Enstit Yll, 17.
20Ms. Z, interview conducted with Sevim Yeil in Menemen, Izmir on 14 July 2002.
21 Faruk Alpkaya, Cumhuriyet Rejiminin Bir Islah almas, MA thesis (Istanbul University, 1988), 6470.
22mer Kemal Aar, Kz Enstits ald, Altan: Elziz Halkevi Dergisi 32 (1937), 13.
24Sipari atlyesi, 19367 Enstit Dergisi, 36.
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elif ekin akit
erspective on homemaking is one example: the fact that a standard high

p
school education did not provide young women with homemaking skills
had led to concerns that womanhood was being split into two; uneducated housewives, on the one hand, and educated working women, on
the other. Writing in a yearbook, smail Hakk, for example, praised the
institutes for their potential to mitigate against this split by educating
housewives.25 The nation could only hope to rest on a foundation created
by these conscientious housewives trained to properly raise citizens for
the new republic.26
International Connections
The girls institutes in Turkey were not the only schools to bring forth new
definitions of the public and private spheres starting in the nineteenth
century. A similar ideological education of women was taking place in
other countries around the world, as in the face of increasing worldwide
European influence, men romantically and idealistically promoted reforming women and girls education in countries from Egypt to China.27
25smail Hakk, Enstitler aile terbiyesinin temelidir, Enstit Yll (Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1935), 19.
26For a comparative understanding of the usage of the mother figure in nationalist
policies, see Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism,
Nationalism and Gender (Toronto: Canadian Scholar Press, 2000); Amy Bentley, Eating for
Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1998); Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity, in Tensions of
Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Anna Davin, Imperialism and Mother
hood, History Workshop Journal 5 (1976); Tamar Mayer (ed.), Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Rick Wilford and RobertL.
Miller, Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition (London and New York:
Routledge, 1998).
27Chang Y-fa, WomenA New Social Force, Chinese Studies in History (197778), 31,
32, 37. Also see Mark Elvin, Female Virtue and the State in China, Past and Present 103
(1984), 111152 on how expectations regarding girls virtues have changed over the centuries
and how girls education was seen as the primary means for creating virtuous women.
Marie Florine Bruneau, Learned and Literary Women in Late Imperial China and Early
Modern Europe, Late Imperial China 13, no. 1 (1992), 158. Also see Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995); Beth Baron, The Making of the Egyptian Nation, in Gendered
Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Ida Blom,
Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2000).
With the twentieth century, the predominantly male-oriented character

of education in Europe, as in the Weimar Republic, for example, can be
contrasted with the new emphasis given to the women of the nation in
early Republican Turkey. In this sense the politics of education in Turkey
were similar to those in India and Iran, where women were an important
symbol, and creator, of the new nation.28 Citizen-creating roles attributed
to the women of Iran during its nation-building process have been noted,
for example, by Afsaneh Najmabadi.29 Indeed, the Hneristan- Duhteran
(Place for the skills of daughters), opened by the Shah in 1938, closely
resembled the smet Paa Girls Institute.30 In these non-Western countries women were central to modernization projects that aimed at societal
transformation. Yet the role of women in Turkey differed from others in
that Turkish nationalism never made the female, motherly body a more
important issue than the idea of motherhood itself.31 In other words, the
national duties of a mother meant an idealized, sexless mother, while
the emphasis on the girl stripped women of their sexuality. The girl was
a mother-to-be without sexuality, an ideal candidate for educational
purposes.32
The invention of the girl was also influential in North American and
western Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this
was reflected in an international market for educators in these areas; girls
institutes drew on teachers from Belgium, France, and Germany.33 And
students relations with their European, mostly French, teachers appear
to have created lasting impressions. Aliye Temin (later a deputy) recalls
with great happiness a trip to Paris to visit a teacher on the occasion of
her graduation. In our interview of January 2002, she described this visit
28Gilmer W. Blackburn, Education in the Third Reich: A Study of Race and History in
Nazi Textbooks (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 105115; smail Kaplan,
Trkiyede Milli Eitim deolojisi ve Siyasal Toplumsallama zerine Etkisi (Istanbul: letiim
Yaynlar, 1999), 142143. Ida Blom, introduction to Gendered Nations, ed. Blom, Hagemann,
and Hall, 6; Chakrabarty, The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity.
29Afsaneh Najmabadi, The Erotic Vatan as Beloved and Mother: To Love, to Possess,
and to Protect, Comparative Studies in Society and History (1997), 442467.
30BCA, 2/11/1938, 437294, 30.10.0.0, 261.762.24.
31 In contrast to Ida Blom, introduction to Gendered Nations, 13.
32Note that girls asexuality differs from the masculinist asexuality of, for example,
professional women: Gke Bayrakeken-Tzel, Being and Becoming Professional: Work
and Liberation Through Womens Narratives in Turkey, PhD thesis (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2004), 237238.
33Elif Ekin Akit, Patterns of Spiritual Involvements of Women in Ankara, MA thesis
(Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 1998), Appendix 1.
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elif ekin akit
as the equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca. Paris became a source of inspiration to other students as well, as sewing patterns and materials were
ordered from here,34 to be purchased by the teachers themselves.35 In
other words, the skills learned in the institutes were complemented with
new languages and a love for Western civilization.
The fact that young women were freed from household chores opened
them up to new influences. Traces of this openness may be seen in the
way that graduates of the institutes, even at advanced ages, continue to
relate to each other as girls. In short, having emerged during the period
before World War II, when the Turkish state stood close to Italy and Germany, these schools cultivated certain peer dynamics among girls that
were inspired by European practices.
Before and during World War II, politicians shared goals in education
shaped by relations among countries. For example, Turkey was influenced
by the German model during this period. Thus two of the three Ks of
German anti-feminist politics, Kinder and Kche, were understood as the
ultimate place and tasks for women. After the war the American model
moved to the foreground in school magazines, replacing the German one.
The private sphere was now nearly limited to the kitchen, and an industrial aspiration, Taylorism, was to prevail in this space. Thus Taylorism was
introduced into the household even as industrialism came to dominate
development plans for Turkey. When applied to the housewifes work,
this scientific and disciplined organization of housework standardized
and systematized her bodily movements in a way similar to factory labor.36
Women needed to be extremely conscientious while performing multiple
tasks in a small kitchen, especially when clothed in hygienic white; an
efficient housewife was to place the kitchenware appropriately in order to
move swiftly from the oven to the sink, from the sink to the table.37
The application of Taylorism to kitchen work was not just a parody of
an industrial strategy, nor was it an aggrandizement of womens work.
34BCA 27/2/1933, 13901, 144138, 30.18.1.2, 34.12.5; 5/11/1933, 15199, 144154, 30.18.1.2,
40.76.18; 26/3/1936, 2/4269, 144194, 30.18.1.2, 63.23.13.
35Teachers like Violette Pillzer. BCA, 14/11/1940, 2/14679, 127141, 30.18.1.2, 93.105.19.
36Modern ev idaresi: Evimizde (Taylorizm), 19367 Enstit Dergisi (1937), 4041. This
article summarizes principles of Taylorism on how to reorganize the kitchen in order to
increase the efficiency of the housewife. Also see Yael Navaro-Yain, Evde Taylorizm: Trkiye Cumhuriyetinin ilk yllarnda eviinin rasyonellemesi (19281940), Toplum ve Bilim
84 (2002), 5174.
37Modern ev idaresi: Evimizde (Taylorizm), 4041.
During a time when the importance of the public sphere was increasing
while the spaces reserved for it were decreasing, the kitchen was declared
a factory through the application of Taylorism to the urban Turkish
household. This factory was no longer an area for women to seek and
claim the reproduction of their own lives and values, or even the mere
survival of their families; even relations with their children took on a new
formality insofar as these were now perceived as the future citizens of the
Republic. Nor could women claim their kitchens in the public sphere, for
example, by forming a network of relations with other women in other
kitchens, because what was going on in the kitchen had to be isolated
in order to be sufficiently hygienic. One of the most private corners of
the modern private sphere in the first half of the twentieth century,38 the
kitchen was becoming the beating heart of the new nation.
Reversing the public and private spheres was advocated by the school
magazines in the form of poems such as this one starting, Dear Turkish
Girl, discover your useless hopes and dispose of them, let motherhood be
your ultimate aim!39 This re-invention of homemaking brought a new
understanding to womens work, which now meant not just toil but also
complete dedication. The Turkish girl, stripped of her useless hopes
experience of sexuality, remuneration for her labor, perhaps even remaining singlewas to limit her life goals to motherhood; only then could she
find her place within the state discourse.
It should be recalled that a coexistence of motherliness and lack of sexuality distinguished the Turkish girl from her counterpart in other nations.
The emphasis on asexuality was shared by various discourses developed
around newly opening schools in the early Republic, a result of the new
Western standard of mixed education, while the simultaneous emphasis
on future motherhood distinguished the girls institute magazines. Thus if
the sacralization of motherhood was common to both Indian and Turkish modernisms, Indian colonization was marked by an impulse to protect women from the influence of the West.40 This obliged the women
of the nation to adhere to traditional values and outlooks. Alternatively,
38Ferhunde zbay, Gendered Space: A New Look at Turkish Modernisation, Gender
& History 11, no. 3 (1999), 555568.
39193738 Enstit Yll, 14.
40Chakrabarty, The Difference-Deferral of Colonial Modernity, Partha Chatterjee,
The Nationalist Resolution of the Woman Question, in Recasting Women: Essays in
Indian Colonial History, ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 233253; Najmabadi, The Erotic Vatan.
144
elif ekin akit
erotic attributes of the motherland, symbolized by the Quranic character Zulaykha in Iran, were nowhere to be seen in the Turkish girl.41 In
contrast to the erotic love that Zulaykha developed for Joseph in the religious tale, the Turkish girl was to cling to her girlishnesswhich should
also, perhaps, guarantee her submission to the republican state and its
politics of education.
The obsessive attitude toward the cleanliness of the house and tidiness
of clothing cultivated in the institutes meant that it was not enough to
cling to girlhood, one had to also outperform ones mother. Until now,
our girls had to be satisfied with what they learned from their mothers,
and were miserable with their sloppiness in life. But now, those who
attend the Institute start their lives with valuable information, having
learned about conduct in the home, and no longer have these problems.42
Institute girls were to transcend the family of the past, or childhood, and
aim for the idealized family of the future, that is, womanhood, albeit one
for which the acknowledgment of sexuality was kept at a convenient distance. In the end, as one of the older student-workers of the Izmir evening
school wrote, none of the students were wasting anything, nor were they
sloppy any more.43
Magazines
The girlhood theme was most prominently visibly in school magazines
in Turkey during the 1930s. In contrast to publications such as Sevimli
Ay, published by socialist and feminist Sabiha Sertel (18951968), starting
in the second half of the 1920s other womens magazines such as Asar-
Nisvan [Works of Women] also focused on homemaking with the larger
goal of being national family magazine(s) similar to the girls institute
publications.44 Sertels magazine bore an element of continuity with feminist publications like Kadnlar Dnyas [Womens World] and Kadnlk
Duygusu [The Feeling of Womanhood] that had emerged after the 1908
constitutional revolution. Then as the Ottoman womens movement was
41 Gayane Karen Merguerian and Afsaneh Najmabadi, Zulaykha and Yusuf: Whose
Best Story? International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 4 (1997), 485508.
42Akam okulu, 193435 Enstit Yll (1935), 53.
43Rahan Sezer, Akam okulu, 19378 Enstit Dergisi (1938), 3435.
44For example, see Kar-Koca Kavgas, Asar- Nisvan 2, 1 (1925), 1415.
repressed in the early years of the Turkish Republic,45 new magazines

such as Asar- Nisvan were born. In its pages the impact that the quarrels of husbands and wives had on their children and on society were
emphasized, along with illustrations of fashionable men and women. For
instance, one cover page featured a picture of president Mustafa Kemal
and his wife Latife Hanm, hand in hand like their Western-style counterparts. It is possible that pictures of couples, and stories of their real
problems, may have targeted middle-class women readers while girls
institute magazines, which idealized motherhood, did not go into the
details of future couplehood that awaited the mother-to-be. In fact, men
were scarce in the lives of mothers-to-be in the institute magazines.
The discourse of the school magazines differed significantly from that
of privately owned magazines for girls. Although both types claimed to
address and speak for the girls being educated in such schools, there is a
discernible difference in their ideals. Magazines such as Okul Kz [School
Girl] asserted that they gave priority to girls who sought to achieve things
in life, especially on the level of ideas; this set them apart from the institute magazines focused on doing rather than thinking.46 Unfortunately, as
with the idealist publications of the late Ottoman era, magazines of this
type failed to remain viable for any length of time.
The transition away from the multi-ethnic education system of the Ottoman empire was mostly compensated for by the girls institutes. While
many missionary schools and those for ethnic minorities had existed
alongside a variety of state schools prior to the Republic,47 the reform
known as the systematization of education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat), together
with mixed classroom practices after 1923, marked a new beginning for
female students. The ideal of mixed schooling resulting in professional
degrees was attained by very few individuals.48 Furthermore, while coeducational schooling was a reasonable solution given the economic straits
of the early Republic, parents hesitated to send their daughters to these
schools.49 Thus, especially for the more conservative Anatolian cities and
45Zafer Toprak, Halk Frkasndan nce Kurulan Parti: Kadnlar Halk Frkas, Tarih
ve Toplum 51 (1988), 3031; Yaprak Zihniolu, Kadnsz nklp: Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadnlar
Halk Frkas, Kadn Birlii (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 2003).
46Fikret Devrimeri, kmaktaki balca byk gayemiz nedir? Okul Kz 1 (1937).
47Alkan, Education Statistics, 37, 51, 5362.
48Bayrakeken-Tzel, Being and Becoming Professional.
49Even so, there were up to 400,000 primary school students in Turkey following
the opening of the mixed system in primary schools, and 23 percent of these were girls.
19231934 Trkiye statistik Yll / Statistical Yearbook of Turkey Devlet statistik Enstits,
146
elif ekin akit
the lower classes, girls institutes became a primary alternative to mixed

schools. Their production ateliers also provided a self-sufficient structure
that made these schools unique alternatives.
The magazines of the girls institutes, while presenting themselves as an
alternative to conceptions of the basic passivity of female childhood and
womanhood, defined their activity in the field of production. One graduate reports that when, upon graduation, the prolonged period between
childhood and womanhood was finally over and the ideal conditions
marriage to a state official, perhaps moving to a small town, in any case
distancing oneself from traditionwere to some exent fulfilled, a graduate could start producing new clothes for her family, decorate her home
with curtains, tablecloths, tables and chairs, and turn her life into a showcase for the town.50
In fact, in advising girls as mothers-to-be to consider the home as a
womans ultimate and optimum space, the institute magazines were of
course proposing traditional roles for young women in an outwardly modern setting. This was an ex nihilo discourse, as if earlier feminist magazines
had never existed and women, who had left their feminist goals aside to
contribute to the nationalist struggle, had never struggled for their rights.
Moreover, the ideology of domesticity that prevailed in these magazines
in the 1930s provided clues to the American influences that held sway in
educational policies in the decades to follow.51
The Izmir Girls Institute magazines were also influenced by public
expectations regarding the students: while popular young womens magazines had differing formats, the school magazines were published regularly, had a neat layout, and its subjects were relatively well-defined with
a clear focus on scientific homemaking. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s,
the school was consistent in printing only on good quality paper, as well
as in providing ample space for the girls to contribute to the magazine.
While other girls institutes activities can be followed only through daily
vol. 7 (Ankara: Devlet Matbaas, 1934), 287288; Mine Tan, Toplumsal deiim ve eitim:
kadn bak asndan, Ankara niversitesi Eitim Bilimleri Fakltesi Dergisi 27, no. 1 (1994),
88; Trkiyede kadn eitimi uluslararas konseyi, 2000li yllar ncesinde Trkiyede kadn
eitimi (Ankara: Milli Eitim Bakanl, 1992); K. Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in
American Domesticity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); A. Kaplan Manifest Domesticity, American Literature 70, no. 3 (1998), 581606; Sabiha Sertel, Roman Gibi (Istanbul:
Ant Yaynlar, 1966), 220276; 1944 Enstit Yll (Izmir: Cumhuriyet Kz Enstits, 1944), 9;
Cemil Koak, Trkiyede Milli ef Dnemi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 1996).
50Interview with Ms. E., 15 July 2004.
51 Sklar, Catharine Beecher; Kaplan Manifest Domesticity.
or weekly local newspapers and the like, the Izmir Girls Institute activities were reflected in its own publication, whose consistency and quality
marked girls education in Turkey of the period.
Although Turkey did not actively fight in World War II, the effects of the
war on the country were felt intensely since politicians made agreements
with both Germany and England.52 While England seemed to have more
influence in Turkish politics, the popular media, along with most politicians, felt closer to fascist Germany.53 Thus by 1944, agendas that included
a conservative redefinition of the girl with an emphasis on values such as
good morals, selflessness, and patriotism prevailed.54 The institute magazines identified wholly with smet nns (18841973) politics and even
referred to the national flag as the flag of the president.55
nn, first prime minister and icon of the new Turkish Republic, then
president who ushered in Turkeys transition to multi-party politics, had
always supported the institutes. Institute teachers were fascinated with
him and he visited them in turn, according to a graduate.56 A photograph
of an important institute directress with nn hand in hand suggests
important connections: the pose emphasizes his support for her activities in the eastern provinces, as well as their collective commitment to a
Westernized vision where men and women could hold hands in public
even though not married.57
The end of the single-party regime (1945) brought another period of
transformation in the girls institutes. With the multi-party regime following World War II, the Democrat Party, on the strength of its newly-gained
popular support, sought to destroy institutions that had become symbols
for the single party regime. Girls institutes were not targeted for closure
since they had, as noted above, proceeded well down the path of Americanization, of which the Democrat Party was also a proponent. In 1950,
the girls institutes were turned into maturation institutes (Olgunlama
Enstits), a new format that aimed at a basic education for girls. These
carried on the conservative outlook of the girls institutes, with their definition of the home as a middle-class womans truest and highest place,
52Sertel, Roman Gibi, 220276.
53Sertel, Roman Gibi, 220276.
56See Koak, Trkiyede Milli ef; Ms. Z., interview conducted with Sevim Yeil at Menemen, Izmir, 14 July 2002.
57Sdka Avar, Da ieklerim (Ankara: retmen Yaynlar, 1986), 231.
148
elif ekin akit
while education practices bore a comparatively lighter load of ideology

than they had in prior periods. By this date the students social profiles
had become more uniform, closer to the middle-class ideals reflected in
the school magazines. But it had also become clear that the ideal of a
classless society at the foundation of the institutes had proved unrealistic;
and given the liberal outlook of the Democrat Party politicians ceased to
promote it.58
Conclusion
The girls institutes aimed at raising good mothers and good wives who
perfectly embodied the new national identity. To whatever extent they
were able to realize this goal, the first student class of the late 1930s stayed
girls for the rest of their lives, signifiers of a cultural shift that provided
space for women in a comparatively public sphere as long as they conformed to mainstream politics. It was understood from many womens
publications of the 1930s, including institute magazines, that modernization of the country closely concerned women; to a significant extent
it was through their education as Turkish mothers that a future would
materialize for the Republic. Here, girls as future women were placed in
as yet imaginary kitchens and the home was defined as the womans ultimate place.59 After this period, and especially after World War II, the girls
institutes, under their new names, may have focused less on ideology, but
maintained a social conservatism that placed women nowhere outside
the home, rather these schools provided an alter-nationalist discourse in
which women citizens were seen as the building blocks of a new nation.
This discourse linked Turkey to post-colonial regimes such as those of
India and Iran, which challenged a pure Western-type nationalism. What
was peculiar to the Turkish case was the invention of girlhood to create a new balance between the public and private spheres and as a sort
of limbo between childhood and womanhood. The formality and standardization of procedures at the heart of the home, that is, the kitchen,
58Tokta has investigated the Five-Year Development Plans available at the Ministry
of Education. ule Tokta, Gender Awareness: A Study of Women Teachers and Academicians Who Are Graduates of Girls Institutes 196070, MA thesis (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 1997), 20, 156; ule Tokta and Dilek Cindolu Modernization and
Gender: A History of Girls Technical Education in Turkey Since 1927, Womens History
Review 15, no. 5 (2006), 737749.
59Aliye Temuin, Bugnk ve eski kadn, 19378 Enstit Dergisi (1938), 17.
pointed to a major transformation in the private sphere as a means to

a future transformation of the public sphere. Thus the private and the
public, the shadow and its shadow, changed places. Mentalities that were
a product of the 1930s, like attributing household roles to women while
emphasizing their central role in nation-state building, continued to prevail for many more decades.
150
elif ekin akit

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Part Three
Creating New Lives, Pushing the Boundaries:

Female Ottoman Artists
Chapter Seven
Painting the Late Ottoman Woman:

Portrait(s) of Mihri Mfik Hanm
Burcu Pelvanolu
It has been often been observed that women have been rendered invisible
by historians and frequently left out of written history.1 However, while
their subjectivities and activities may not be reflected in written history,
many women have been true historical subjects, important contributers
to the making of history.2 Mihri Mfik Hanm is one of these neglected
historical subjects, a significant figure of late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish society mainly because of her contribution to the institutionalization of art education for girls and the modernization process in
Turkey.3 Although Mihri Mfik Hanm has drawn attention as a woman
artist and an administrator in the school of fine arts, and her achievements noted as important, even exceptional, historical accounts usually
provide only a short and incomplete life story. A more detailed and sensitive analysis of Mihri Hanm will shed light not only on late Ottoman
womens history but also on the larger history of cultural modernization
in this environment.
The beginnings of plastic arts (as understood in the West) in the late
Ottoman Empire went hand in hand with the westernization process in
other areas, such as the military, education, and public administration
during the years 17741820, generally regarded as the early period of westernization. At this time, Ottoman observers perceived the supremacy of
the West mostly in the technological domain. During this period, courses
on perspective ( fenn-i menzr) were taught in military schools. In the
1Fatmagl Berktay, Cumhuriyetin 75 Yllk Servenine Kadnlar Asndan Bakmak,
75 Ylda Kadnlar ve Erkekler (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yaynlar, 1998), 2. See also Joan Wallach
Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) and
Joan Wallach Scott (ed.), Feminism and History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996).
2Berktay, Cumhuriyetin 75 Yllk Servenine Kadnlar Asndan Bakmak, 2.
3Hanm, meaning lady or madame, is conventionally used after a womans first name
as a standard, polite form of address. Mihri Hanm chose to use Hanm rather than her
husbands last name, Mfik, after their divorce.
156
burcu pelvanolu
period after 1826, westernization was associated more with the ideas of
the Enlightenment, as formulated in the Tanzmt Edict (1839).
The Tanzmt reforms aimed to create a new category, the Ottoman
citizen, while women became not only a center of attention but also
objects of bureaucratic and legal change.4 The reforms various impacts
on upper-class women were to render them more visible in public spaces
by, among other things, enhancing and enabling their activities outside
the home.5 The education of women, their increasing visibility in the public sphere, their taking professionseven having their picture takenall
symbolized a new energy and transparency in the womens domain as
they assumed new places as social actors.6
The changing status of women in the late nineteenth and early twen
tieth centuries was no doubt closely related to new educational opportunities offered them, such as studying abroad, in missionary schools, or
in the newly established Ottoman schools for girls. In late Ottoman society the concept of mahrem, or sacrosanct domestic privacy, was shaken,
and its traditional strictness began to relax. As Zeynep nankur points
out: Ironically, those yearswhen the woman figure had virtually vanished from the canvasrepresent a turning point for women in Ottoman
society. When the female subject reappeared on canvas (she) became the
representative of a new identity.7
For the daughters of upper class families, westernization meant learning a foreign language, especially French, and piano and painting lessons
in their mansions, all from private tutors (mrebbiye). Late nineteenthcentury Ottoman literature, especially novels, reflects these changes in
the lives of women, children, and the rest of the household.8 Two famous
female characters of late nineteenth-century literature, Canan in Felatun
Bey ve Rakm Efendi, by Ahmet Midhad Efendi, and Adnan Beys daughter
Nihal in Ak- Memnu, by Halid Ziya (Uaklgil), depict these westernized
lifestyles of upper-class women.
4erif Mardin, Trk Modernlemesi (Ankara: letiim Yaynlar, 1991), 7576.

5erif Mardin, Trk Modernlemesi, 10.
6Nilfer Gle, Modern Mahrem: Medeniyet ve rtnme (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar,
1991), 24.
7Zeynep nankur, The Changing Image of Women in 19th Century Ottoman Painting,
Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies, IV (2001), 121.
8erif Mardin, Super Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
Quarter of the Nineteenth Century, Turkey, Geographic and Social Perspectives, ed. Peter
Benedict, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 403446.
painting the late ottoman woman
157
The eccentric and bohemian painter Mihri (Mfik) Hanm should be

studied both as a member of this group of upper-class women, and at
the same time as someone who diverged from the ideological and moral
boundaries of this privileged group. Mihri Hanm was born in the Rasim
Paa Kona (mansion) in Baklatarlas district of Kadky in Istanbul, on
26 February 1301/1886. Her Circassian father, Dr. Ahmet Rasim Paa, was
an anatomy specialist and a preeminent instructor in the Military School
of Medicine (Askeri Tbbiye).9 In formal documents and family letters, he
is also referred to as the president of this institution.10 Dr. Ahmet Rasim
Paas refined tastes and interest in music, painting, and literature must
have played an important role in the artistic formation of his daughter. In
addition to his reputation as a physician, Rasim Paa was also famous for
his interest in music and for playing the saz11 at evening gatherings.12 In
these activities he serves as a telling example of the Istanbul elites of the
period for displaying an occidental versatility in their lives. Mihri Hanms
Circassian mother was one of Rasim Paas wives. Her younger sister Enise
Hanm was mother to the painter Hale (Salih) Asaf, another distinguished
female artist of late Ottoman society (figures 4.1 and 4.2).
Given a typical Western education, Mihri (Mfik) Hanm took an
interest in literature, music, and painting. Her first private lessons in
painting were provided by an Italian Orientalist artist, Fausto Zonaro
(18541929), in his studio in the Istanbul quarter of Beikta-Akaretler.13
Mihri Hanm fell in love with the Italian director of an acrobat company
visiting Istanbul,14 and subsequently departed for Rome and then Paris,
evidently wishing to be involved in art circles.15 For a time she lived and
worked in a flat in Montparnasse, sustaining herself by painting portraits
9Most sources give Mihri Hanms fathers name as Dr. Mehmet Rasim Paa; however,
Mahinur Tuna worked on Mihri Hanms genealogy and found that in official documents
her fathers name appeared as Dr. Ahmet Rasim Paa. See Mahinur Tuna, lk Trk Kadn
Ressam Mihri Rasim (Mfik) Aba (Istanbul: As Yayn, 2007), 2230.
10Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz (Istanbul: Akbank Kltr Sanat Yaynlar,
1988), 10.
11The saz is a traditional Turkish instrument similar to the lute.
12Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz, 10.
13Fausto Zonaro came to Istanbul in 1891 and captured the attention of Abdlhamid II.
The studio in Beikta-Akaretler was assigned to him in 1893 by the Sultan and he was
honored with the title Sultans Painter in 1896. The artist was forced to leave Istanbul
when the Tripoli war broke out in 1911.
14Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz (2), Sanat Dnyamz 26 (1982), 37.
15Hikmet Onat drew attention to a drawing exam at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He
reports that a Turkish girl congratulated him, and that was how he met Mihri Hanm
(Canan Beykal, Yeni Kadn ve nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, Yeni Boyut 2, no. 16 (1983), 13.
158
burcu pelvanolu
Figure 4.1.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Self-portrait: A Souvenir from Istanbul to my

Beloved Vecih, watercolor on paper, 12.5 8 cm. Private collection.
Figure 4.2.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Her Sister Enise Hanm, pastel on cardboard, 65 50.5 cm., Mimar Sinan Gzel Sanatlar University Istanbul Painting
and Sculpture Museum.
159
and subletting one of her rooms to students. One of these tenants was
Mfik Selami Bey, a student of politics at the University of Sorbonne,
whom she later married.16
Mihri Hanm was introduced to Cavit Bey, Ottoman minister of finance,
in Paris to arrange an agreement with the French government following
the Balkan Wars. Telegrams sent by Cavit Bey to the minister of education recommending Mihri Hanm resulted in her being appointed as an
art teacher at the Istanbul Teachers Training School for Girls (Drlmuallimt) in 1913,17 following the appointments of Mfide Kadri18 and
Madame Rafael.19 When the School of Fine Arts for Girls (nas Sanayi-i
Nefise Mekteb-i lisi) was established in 1914, she was hired here as director as well as fine arts instructor, following the appointment of mathematician Salih Zeki Bey. As we will see, Mihri Hanms contributions to the
School of Fine Arts for Girls were considerable, even revolutionary.
Another early and significant step in womens education was the opening of nursing classes in 1843. Fifteen years later, a letter arrived at the
Grand Vizirate from the Council of Education, stressing that a school for
girls was badly needed; if leaving girls uneducated was now being viewed
as dangerous, after a certain age educating them together with males was
equally so.20 Thus shortly thereafter, in 1859, the first general school for
women, the Cevri Kalfa School, was opened, and since women teachers
could not be found, elderly male instructors were hired to provide training. Official journals as well as various other newspapers supported womens education and promoted the Cevri Kalfa School. Arguments made
Since we know that Onat was in Paris in 1911, Mihri Hanm must have been in Paris at the
same time.
16Mfik Bey was the son of Selami Bey, a well-known personage from Bursa. He was
interested in politics, history, and literature. The date of his marriage with Mihri Mfik
Hanm is unknown. (See Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz, 39.)[[Au: please clarify, is
this the book (1988), or the article (2), as below?]]
17 Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz (2), 10.
18Mfide Kadri (18901912) took lessons from the renowned Orientalist painter Osman
Hamdi Bey as a child; later on, he taught at the Teachers Training School (Drlmuallimt),
and then was appointed as tutor to Adile Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdlhamid II.
The Ottoman Palace thus became familiar with the female painter figure.
19Madame Rafael probably taught in this school following the death of Mfide Kadri
and until the appointment of Mihri Hanm. Madame Rafael took her students to the exhibition at the School of Fine Arts for Boys (Sanayi-i Nefise-i Mekteb-i lisi) in order to
create the occasion for an encounter with paintings and thus encourage a love of art. See
Sedad etinta, Tarihi Notlar: Gzel Sanatlar Akademisi, Cumhuriyet (6 May 1939), 5.
20BOA, Nr. 27616, cited by Sema Uurcan, Tanzimat Devrinde Kadnn Stats, 150.
Ylnda Tanzimat (Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu Yayn, 1992), 500501.
160
burcu pelvanolu
in favor of it were mostly based on moralistic reasoning: that educated

girls would be more obedient, chaste, and reasonable, and so would bring
greater welfare and happiness to their families.21 Prominent male authors
of the period like Namk Kemal, inasi, emsettin Sami, and Ahmet Rza
followed the famous writer and journalist Ahmet Midhat Efendi and
frequently gave a place to womens problems in their writings. The first
school of art for girls (nas Sanat Mektebi), noted above, was opened in
1864, followed by the teacher training school for girls (Drlmuallimt),
where Mihri Hanm began to work in 1870.
With the coming of the Second Constitutional period in 1908, the
concept of freedom became a slogan for women as well as men, while
after 1911 the war atmosphere provided opportunities to engage in a new
range of social and political activities. Womens societies were founded, a
womens press flourished, and with the Education Law of 1913, attempts
were made to disseminate education more widely, to the masses. By this
time, educated women like Halide Edip, Fatma Aliye, and Mfide Ferid
were voicing womens concerns and drawing the contours of an Ottoman
womens movement in its broad outline.
Thanks to the Education Law, by 1914 higher education for women
became a possibility; on 7 February 1914, seminars and courses for women
began at Istanbul University (Drlfnn). While five or six hundred
women attended these courses, the newly opened University for Women
(nas Drl-fnn) managed to enlist only twenty-six. In 191920, nas
Drl-fnn was separated from the Superior School of Teaching and
joined to Istanbul University. From then on, classes for girls were regularly
held in university classrooms, although scheduled at different times from
those of the male students. When the female students protested the class
scheduling arranged for them and began attending classes with male students, their separate classes were finally canceled (16 September 1921).
Another institution, the School of Fine Arts for Girls, had opened within
the larger Drl-fnn, on 13 October 1914.22 The first building of the
school was named Bezm-i lem Valide Sultan, also known as the Istanbul
Girls College (stanbul Kz Lisesi);23 it is elsewhere argued that the first
21BOA, Nr. 27616, cited by Sema Uurcan, Tanzimat Devrinde Kadnn Stats,
500501.
22According to Halil Edhem, the school was opened 1 November 1914. See Halil Edhem,
Elvah- Nakiye Koleksiyonu (1924), ed. Gltekin Elibal (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaynlar, 1970), 43.
23Mustafa Cezar, Gzel Sanatlar Eitiminde 100 Yl (Istanbul: Mimar Sinan niveristesi
Yayn, 1983), 14.
161
school building was the Zeynep Hanm Mansion, which also hosted the
Istanbul Teachers Training School for Girls.24
Education at the School of Fine Arts for Girls thrived with the appointment of Mihri Hanm as director. While finding models for the drawing
classes was a troubling issue even at the School of Fine Arts for boys,
Mihri Hanm managed to solve this persistent problem in imaginative
ways. Antique Greek sculptures, Russian migrants, older women whom
Mihri Hanm found in the public baths; Ali Efendi, a school attendant;
and the famous Zaro Aaall served as models thanks to Mihri Mfiks
efforts. One of her pupils, Nazl Ecevit, mentions that Mihri Hanm once
requested ancient Greek sculptures from Halil Edhem Bey, director of the
Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Following a complaint by a museum
attendant on the nudity of a male Greek sculpture selected as a model,
Mihri Hanm persuaded the official authorities by assuring them that towels (petemal) would be wrapped around the genital area.25
Apparently, Mihri Hanm wished that her students be exposed to more
than just her own artistic style. Gzin Duran, one of her students, narrates
that their teacher sent them to Ali Sami Boyars studio for six months, yet
they returned to her studio, unhappy with Ali Sami Bey.26 Mihri Hanm also
created the opportunity for students to continue their drawing classes in
the open air in summertime under the supervision of the famous painter
Hoca Ali Rza, who belonged to the all, or 1914, generation.27
The all (1914) generation artists28 traveled to Paris in the years 1908
1910 to attend the atelier of Fernand Cormon (18451924); they returned to
Istanbul at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Following a trend of openair painting that had been introduced by Hoca Ali Rza, this generation of
artists fell under the influence of Impressionism, which was living out its
24Canan Beykal, Yeni Kadn ve nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, 613; Zeynep Yasa Yaman,
nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mekteb-i lisi, Dnden Bugne stanbul Ansiklopedisi 4 (Istanbul:
letiim Yaynlar, 1994), 170171. But more recent research shows that the schools curriculum began at Drlfnn then continued at Bezm-i lem Valide Sultan School and after
a few years moved to the school for children (sbyan mektebi) in Gedikpaa. See Fatma
rekli, Gzel Sanatlar Eitiminde Osmanl Hanmlarna Alan Bir Pencere nas Sanayi-i
Nefse Mektebi, Tarih ve Toplum 231 (2003), 5060.
25Anonymous, Interview with Nazl Ecevit, Yeni Boyut 2, no. 16 (1983), 14.
26Interview with Prof. Adnan oker, 26 May 2002.
27Canan Beykal, Yeni Kadn ve nas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, 10.
28A few of these artists are Ibrahim all (18821960), after whom the school was named
because of his popularity; Nazmi Ziya (18811937), Hikmet Onat (18821977), Hseyin Avni
Lifij (18851927), Feyhaman Duran (18861970), Namk smail (18901935), Mehmet Ruhi
Arel (18801931), and Sami Yetik (18781945).
162
burcu pelvanolu
last days in Europe. They rendered scenes from different neighborhoods

of Istanbul at differing hours of daylight, and claimed to paint photographically. Their visit to Paris coincided with the Second Constitutional
periods more open political atmosphere; the ban that forbade working
with models was removed at this time.29
In 1917 Mihri Hanm founded a society of fine arts for girls and organized an exhibition at her home in ili in order to raise funds for its
operations. This attempt likely failed to meet the societys financial needs;
in any case it did not pursue any further activities.
Mihri Hanms biographical portrait is tightly interwoven with her
teaching career, yet for a fuller picture we also need to glance at her
painting and her portraits of women. Differing from the 1914 generations
Impressionist works focusing on landscapes and nature morte, Mihri
Hanm created portraits that displayed a classic and romantic style very
similar to that of Osman Hamdi Bey. Her insistence on female portraits
and self-portraits provides important clues to her ideas regarding the
complex metamorphoses undergone by late Ottoman women. They often
displayed Orientalist traits in themes, style, and atmosphere; she seemed
well aware of the possibilities that the Orientalist mode offered for artistic
expression. Yet Mihri Hanms Orientalism offers a fresh and challenging
interpretation since her women behind the veil do not represent typical Oriental fantasies: women present themselves from behind veils, yet
they are not the odalisques, slaves, or concubines of classic Orientalist
painting, but upper-class women who began to have a more discernible
presence in the public sphere in the second half of the nineteenth century
(figures 4.3 and 4.4).
It has been argued that Mihri (Mfik) Hanm could be regarded as an
Orientalist painter in the style of Osman Hamdi Bey.30 Both artists received
a Western-style education and were students of Orientalist mastersMihri
Hanm of Fausto Zonaro, and Osman Hamdi Bey of Jean-Leon Grme. Both
were leaders in their respective pedagogical and administrative careers, one
playing a major role in the establishment of the School of Fine Arts for Girls,
the other founding the School of Fine Arts.
29See Burcu Pelvanolu, Trk Plastik Sanatlar Tarihinde Fotoraf-Resim likisi
zerine [On the relationship between photography and painting in the history of Turkish plastic arts], Snr Deneyimleri [On the frontiers of experience] (Istanbul: Akbank Sanat
Yayn, 2005), 6489.
30For more information on Orientalism in the arts and Osman Hamdi Bey, see John
M. Mackenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995) and Mustafa Cezar, Sanatta Batya Al ve Osman Hamdi
(Istanbul: Erol Kerim Aksoy Kltr Vakf Yaynlar, 1995).
163
Figure 4.3.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Woman with Veil, watercolor on paper,

44 29.5 cm. Private collection.
Figure 4.4.Mihri (Mfik) Hanm, Portrait of a Woman, oil on canvas,

98.5 61 cm., Mimar Sinan Gzel Sanatlar University Istanbul Painting
and Sculpture Museum.
164
burcu pelvanolu
The similarities between Osman Hamdi Bey and Mihri Hanm are not
limited to these details. Both artists may also be regarded as Orientalists
from the Orient, in a sense pushing Orientalism to its limits while at the
same time manifesting an evident desire to track change in a geography
depicted as timeless and frozen. Indeed, Osman Hamdi Beys celebrated
works revolutionized the Orientalist genre in the plastic arts: The Tortoise
Trainer carries the message of educating society by means of art;31 in the
Mihrab, he places a woman above even the Holy Quran; Hodjas in Front
of a Mosque depicts religious men as learned intellectuals (figure 4.5). In
general, it could be argued that Osman Hamdi Beys were the first Ottoman paintings dignifying Muslim women. Similarly, Mihri Hanms paintings did not depict Oriental women as erotic and docile objects, passively
receiving the voyeuristic gaze, but as strong personalities who meet the
observers eye with their own.
Yet evaluating Mihri Hanms work only from within the Orientalist
tradition would be to ignore her versatility. In Istanbul, she had close
relations with the Palace and elite circles, as understood, for example,
from anecdotes provided by air Nigar Hanm in her autobiography: Last
night I was invited to visit my dear prince. It was an art soiree. (Prince)
Burhaneddin Efendi was playing the cello, and Vildan Hanm, the daughter of Mahmud Celaleddin Paa, was playing the piano while the painter
Mihri Hanm was painting her portrait.32 Mihri Hanm also had friends
among the poets of the Edebiyat- Cedide (New Literature),33 especially
one of its leaders, Tevfik Fikret. If the Edebiyat- Cedide poets constituted
the literary wing of French artistic influence among the late Ottoman
intelligentsia, Mihri Hanm can be said to represent its counterpart in
painting; she clearly had a special place among the artists of this school.
Tevfik Fikrets house in Aiyan became her studio for a time, as seen in his
notes: There is a lady upstairs who paints my portraits. She interprets my
31See Semra Germaner and Zeynep nankur, Constantinople and the Orientalists (Istanbul: Trkiye Bankas Yaynlar, 2002).
32air Nigar, Hayatmn Hikayesi (Istanbul, 1959) 74, cited by Zeynep nankur, Constantinople and the Orientalists.
33Edebiyat- Cedide was a novel current, largely shaped by Western influences, in late
Ottoman literature (18061901). Its members collected around the journal Servet-i Fnun.
The larger eponymous artistic movement emerged when Tevfik Fikret (18671915) became
the editor of the journal (no. 256, 7 February 1896), which ran until 16 October 1901 when
Sultan Abdlhamid II shut it down because one issue contained the expression ...the
day came when freedom of speech was established by the goverment of 1789, referring
to the French Revolution in an article entitled Literature and Law (Servet-i Fnun, 553,
October 1901).
165
Figure 4.5.Osman Hamdi Bey, Mihrab, 1901, oil on canvas, 210 108 cm.
Private collection.
166
burcu pelvanolu
verses (rbab) so wonderfullyI am suprised to discover that my words

are so meaningful. She has begun to describe myself to me. How alienated
have I become from my writing.34
Edebiyat- Cedide poets were influenced by Realism, Parnassianism,
and Symbolism, which dominated nineteenth-century French literature
during this period. Cenab ahabettin,35 a member of Servet-i Fnun, notes
one of its principal conceptions, a special relation with nature: a place
where emotions and dreams roam,36 it was also taken to act as the mirror of the artists souls.37 In addition to this influence, the color symbolism of Edebiyat- Cedide poetry seems to have inflected Mihri Hanms
work. Ma ve Siyah [Blue and black], Halit Ziyas38 famous novel, reflects
the blues of the Edebiyat- Cedide school as well as of Mihri Hanms
portraits.39
Mihri Hanms visits to the journalist Hseyin Cahit Yaln and the convicted ex-minister of finance, Cavit Bey, gave rise to criticisms regarding
her behavior. In response, in 1919 she and her students paid a visit to the
newspaper Tanin, and denounced the allegations.40 Her close relations
with the ttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress;
CUP) eventually caused Mihri Hanm to leave Istanbul, occupied by Allied
powers, for Italy in 1919. Within a year after her return, she resumed teaching at the School of Fine Arts for Girls.
Toward the end of 1922, she went to Italy again and there ended her marriage with Mfik Bey; the couple divorced in 1923.41 She had an affair with
the Italian poet Gabriele dAnnunzio (18631938)42 and through him found
34smail Hakk Ertaylan, Tevfik Fikret, Hayat, ahsiyeti ve Eserleri (Istanbul: T. Emeklileri retmenler Cemiyeti, 1963), 109110, cited by Seval ahin, Tevfik Fikretin iirlerinde
Renk Belirten Kelimelerin Kullanlmas zerine nceleme ve Deerlendirme, MA thesis
(Mimar Sinan niversitesi, Istanbul, 2002), 58.
35Cenab ahabettin (18701934), who is best known for his poetry, is considered one
of the pioneers of symbolism in late Ottoman literature.
36Mehmet Kaplan, Tevfik Fikret (Istanbul: Dergh Yaynlar, 1997), 539, cited by Seval
ahin, Tevfik Fikretin, xx.
37Seval ahin, Tevfik Fikretin, xx.
38Halid Ziya (Uaklgil) was a prominent member of the Servet-i Fnun movement
and is also generally considered to be the most influential novelist of the late Ottoman
period. In addition to six published novels, he also wrote more than 150 stories, plays,
and poems.
39See Burcu Pelvanolu, Tevfik Fikret ve Mihri (Mfik) Hanm: ki Ressamn Kesime
Noktalar zerine Notlar, Biyografya 7 (Istanbul: Balam Yaynclk, 2006), 157177.
41Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz (2), 34.
42Gabriele dAnnunzio was a leading figure in Italian literature. He published his first
poems at sixteen and served as a minister in 1897. A traveler and military pilot, he lost
an eye in an aviation accident, and participated in the March to Rome with Mussolini in
167
an opportunity to paint a portrait of the Pope as well as to work at the

restoration of the frescoes in a chapel.43 Mihri Hanm had been introduced
to dAnnunzio by her friend, painter Renato Brozzi (18851963), and corresponded with him through Brozzi. She was occasionally a topic in their
correspondence. On 4 February 1926, dAnnunzio wrote to Brozzi: Where
is the Turkish lady? I have been unable to hear from her. If you see her,
embrace her for me, but this embrace must be that of a harem aghas.44 In
another letter, written on 27 August 1926, the Turkish Lady was once again
recalled: Where is the odalisque Mihri? What is she doing?45 Apparently,
regardless of Mihri Hanms struggles as a professional, these Italian painters
continued to view her through an Orientalist filter.
Mihri Hanm returned to Turkey briefly after the foundation of the
Republic. Here she painted Atatrks portrait and presented it to him
personally at the ankaya Presidential Residence in Ankara.46 She subsequently traveled to Rome, to Paris and then to America (New York, Boston,
Washington, and Chicago). The details of her departure from Turkey and
arrival in America are not certain. It is still unclear when she arrived in the
country, though a news item in the New York Times dated 25 November
1928 notes that a collection of Mihri Hanms works was to be exhibited at
the George Maziroff Gallery between November 26 and December 15, thus
indicating that she was in fact in New York after 1928.
Between 1938 and 1939 she worked as a protocol hostess (terifat) at
the World Exposition in Long Island, New York. During this period, she
painted a portrait of Rezzan Yalman, the wife of the journalist Ahmet
Emin Yalman, who lived in New York.47 She also reportedly produced
cover illustrations for various journals published in New York during
World War II.48 She lived her last years destitute and was, sadly, buried in
a paupers graveyard49 in Hart Island, New York in 1954.
While living in the United States, Mihri Hanm was known to have made
a living by tutoring several art students. Yet the strong personality that was
1922his letters to Il Duce were published in the newspapers of the time. He wrote nearly
fifty volumes of poetry and died in his home in Gordonne, on 1 March 1938.
44The term harem aghas refers to the castrated eunuchs guarding and serving the
harems in the Sultans palace. Ahsen Aldoan, Mihri Mfikin Yaam ve Sanat, Tombak
27 (1999), 43.
45Ahsen Aldoan, Mihri Mfikin Yaam ve Sanat, 43.
47Ahmet Emin Yalman, Havalarda 50.000 Kilometre Seyahat (Istanbul: Vatan Matbaas,
1943), 293296.
48Ahmet Emin Yalman, Havalarda 50.000 Kilometre Seyahat, 293296.
168
burcu pelvanolu
so evident in her youth was replaced by a woman who regretted much of

her life, even her profession. In a letter sent from abroad she wrote:
What did I achieve by working all these years? Nothing...Moreover, Ive lost
my health. I was Hercules once, now I cannot climb stairs. This is the state
art has put me in. Above all, my eyes dont see; I use a multitude of glasses.
I am penniless. There is no road so difficult as that of the artist in a country
like ours, which is underdeveloped compared to Europe. Ours is a profession that demands too much self-sacrifice...If they offered me my youth
today, I would refuse it for fear of having to relive all I have been through!
Only God and I know the suffering I have endured...The sole characteristic
of our family is its obstinacy. I lived willfully throughout my life as an artist,
as in everything else...Today, I regret this a thousand times.50
Mihri (Mfik) Hanm was one of several late Ottoman women who contributed to making history, although she has received scant attention in the
pages of Turkeys official historiography. Reina Lewis argues that cultural
theory should assist in reshaping understandings of the Ottoman past by
paying attention to the specifity of Ottoman womens experiences while
shaking off standard formulations of post-imperialist feminist theory.51 When
Mihri Hanm is examined both as a female figure and as an artist, the degree
to which she operated both inside and outside social conventions governing late Ottoman society becomes apparent, and this not only through her
works but also through her intrepid deeds and defiant attitude.
If Mihri (Mfik) Hanm played a leading role in opening the way for
training in the plastic arts for women and in seeing personally to the education of many women artists in the period stretching from the late Ottoman into the Turkish Republican period, it is clear that she also judged
that many male artists suffered from indifference as well and that the Turkish plastic arts were underappreciated throughout their history. Doubtless
one of the main reasons for this is that the art of painting, which had been
embraced by the elite for many years, remained within the bounds of
50Taha Toros, lk Kadn Ressamlarmz, 1617. Senelerce almakla ben neye muvaffak oldum? Hi...stelik shhatimi kaybettim. Vaktiyle Herkl idim. imdi merdivenleri kamyorum...Sanat beni bu hale koydu...Hele gzlerim hi grmyor. ifte ifte
gzlk kullanyorum...Paraszm. Bizim gibi-Avrupaya nazaran- geri kalm bir memlekette sanatkarn yolu kadar g bir yol yoktur. Bizimkisi fazla fedakarlk isteyen bir
meslek...Bugn bana, genliimi hediye etseler, bu meslek urunda ektiklerimi, ekmek
korkusundan, reddederdim! ektiim meakkatleri bir ben bilirim bir de Allah bilir. (...)
Bizim ailenin yegne hususiyeti, inadndadr. Ben her eyde olduu gibi sanat hayatm
boyunca, inadmla yaadm...Bugn, buna, bin kere pimanm.
51Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).
169
what one could call a top-down model of modernization. Mihri Hanms

sister-in-laws daughter, Berceste Hanm, gives an idea how narrow the
painting culture of her family circle actually was in this description of the
fate of one of the artists paintings.
The interest we see in painting today did not exist at that time. What was
a painting, what was the value of a paintingthese things were unknown.
I recall clearly from my childhood that we had a wonderful, huge painting
that had been done by the ex-Finance Minister Cavit Beys son, mit. At that
time we were living in a big house across from Beyazit University. After my
father died, our house became a student rooming house. There we had left
behind the painting. An Armenian woman who worked there took and put
the painting up in a window of the dormitory that faced Beyazit. It would
smile at me as I went by, I would see mits painting every day from that
window. But I was a child; it didnt occur to me to go get it. If I were to do
so people would ask, And just what do you plan to do with mits picture?
That picture stayed propped up in that window for years.52
The little biographical information at our disposal on Mihri (Mfik)

Hanm nonetheless indicates that late Ottoman women did not always
conveniently reflect the standard Orientalist narrative on Muslim women.
Her strong public presence, her cultural dilemmas and then regretful
end, when taken together, suggest some of the complexity of late Ottoman womens lives. Art was, for her, a career choice she felt compelled
to follow, yet Mihri Hanm paid a high price for becoming a historical
subject. Still, she could not help drawing her own, and other Ottoman
womens, portraits.
52Mahinur Tuna, lk Trk Kadn Ressam Mihri Rasim (Mfik) Aba, 9.
170
burcu pelvanolu
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chapter eight
The New Woman in Erotic Popular Literature

of 1920s Istanbul
Fatma Tre
A blurring of traditional gender roles that emerged with World War I, and
anxieties surrounding them, were felt powerfully into the 1920s. In Europe
and the United States the term new or modern woman came to be
used in cases of even slight deviation from the traditional roles of mother
and wife assumed to derive from a womans essential nature. She was
dubbed garonne in France, neue Frau in Germany, new woman in Britain,
and flapper in the United States. She preferred short, bobbed hair, used
makeup, and dressed in a more functional style associated with an active,
working life that de-emphasized feminine features. This attire and physical appearance and the behaviors associated with them were deemed
socially suspect and unwomanly. Together with the short hair, they created a boyish or androgynous look, not at all respectable.1
For Turkey this critical decade was at least as turbulent as it was in
other nations. The closing of the Ottoman era, the occupation of Istanbul,
an authority vacuum caused by the clash of two administrations in Istanbul and Ankara, and then the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 all
took place during the early 1920s. It would be understatement to call this
a mere period of transition. And Istanbul was at center stage in the transformations of the decade, as a metropolis and a city of contrasts where
ostentatious wealth and poverty, learning and ignorance, energizing new
forms of entertainment and bleak despair, prostitution and cloistered
modesty existed side by side.
1In her well-known study of 1920s America, Sarah June Deutsch explores the collective
memory of the flapper, the young women with short hair and short skirts. Deutsch writes
of these girls, who began to break free of not only their long skirts but also centuries of
social restrictions, that they smoke. They dance. They read racy literature. And they do it
all in public. Sarah June Deutsch, From Ballots to Breadlines: American Women, 19201940
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 11; Deutsch lists the flappers short-sleeved short
dress, the heavy makeup used until then only by actresses and prostitutes, and the short
boyish haircut and cigarette as attributes that set her apart from the traditional women of
the period. What is striking about the flapper is her bold and unself-conscious attitude in
displaying these traits. Deutsch, From Ballots to Breadlines, 55.
174
fatma tre
Invaded by Allied forces at the end of World War I, Istanbul was sunk
in poverty and misery and had become a city of war profiteers, yet it was
also a safe haven for White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution and
for refugees from the Balkans. The citys population increased rapidly
and resources were soon strained. Sharp contrasts between the poverty
of the post-war city and the disproportionate wealth of those who made
fortunes during the war; and social changes inspired by the presence of
the Allied forces along with new kinds of entertainment and night life
introduced by the Russian refugees, among others, all resulted in lifestyle
transformations.
Women in Istanbul from the end of World War I to the foundation of the
Republic were impacted in their own way by the economic hardship, lack
of political authority, and changes in social life. As Istanbuls economy and
demography changed, its women became relatively freer and more visible.
This greater public visibility, in turn, triggered debates in the mass media of
the period bringing biological responsibilities, behavior in public, apparel,
and relations with the opposite sex under scrutiny. Against a backdrop of
turmoil and disorder, a majority believed that it was women above all who
threatened the social order and needed to return to their proper roles. Articles in popular magazines urged women to comply with the norms of chastity, good manners, and public morality; women were criticized for what
were seen as contemporary but degenerate forms of behavior.
In the popular press of the 1920s definitions of this degenerate behavior appear similar to those circulating around Europe of the period: freer
relationships with men, spending money on clothing and fashion, using
makeup, cutting hair short, drinking and smoking, dancing, and participating in new forms of entertainment. The popular press of the occupation years made particular reference to what it called the worldly woman,
who closely resembled the new woman image of Europe and the United
States. These worldly women, also believed to be a threat to the social
order, were of a mold similar to upper-middle and upper-class European
women in their close relationship with consumer culture.
At the same time, the popular press also presented consumer culture
as an extension of modern life. Magazines printed features on the latest
fashion news, makeup, and short hairstyles, health and beauty products,
modern etiquette, dance halls, tea parties, and balls.2 In a perplexing manner, the womans new life was both promulgated and condemned.
2While womens fashions touched off both favorable and unfavorable discussions,
magazines such as Ss and Resimli Ay devoted numerous pages to fashion and beauty,
the new woman in erotic popular literature of 1920s istanbul175

Following the declaration of the Republic in 1923, society in Turkey
underwent a swift and radical transformation. A nationwide modernization project was undertaken, designed to lift traditional lifestyles to the
level of civilized nations; it resulted in a clash of old and new values. As
the nation-state advanced along this path, struggling to adopt and adapt
to the notions of nationhood and citizenship, its people incorporated new
identities, replacing old codes with new ones.
As the Republic took steps toward change, modernity, and modernization, the question of womens place and roles in this new society emerged
as a major concern of the day. With regard to modernization, women
were cautioned not to misunderstand the term. A woman could not
become modern just by changing what she wore. And it would be quite
wrong to think that westernization meant no more than adopting Western pleasures and entertainment. The Republican elites widely accepted
that the traditional roles ascribed to women stood as an obstacle to their
advancement. Articles in the popular press featured titles with dualities
such as old-new, yesterday-today and similar comparisons aimed at setting women free from the influence of the past and inviting them to feel
like participants in the new Republic. On the other hand, women would
be devaluing themselves if they made use of no more than their femininity, their sexuality.
It would be fair to say that during the early Republican era the image of
the modern new woman had two different meanings. The positive image
was of a woman educated and professionally occupied, useful to her family and society, who raised her children compassionately and under the
guiding light of science, who supported her husband both spiritually and
materially, who suppressed her sexuality and was devoted to the Republican reforms. This kind of woman was called asr kadn (contemporary
woman), while the negative image was that of a parasitesomeone with
misconceptions of modernity, who made no contribution to production,
keeping women up to date on new trends in Europe. Through these pages women were
able to access all manner of fashion trends related to day and evening wear, accessories,
hair and makeup. This suggests that despite constant and abundant criticism of these
innovations, women maintained their interest in fashion and created demand for it. Ss,
in particular, published articles on womens hair fashions; this continued into the early
years of the Republic. See, for example, Sa Ssleri [Hair ornaments], Ss 10 (18 August
1923), 9; Kesik Salar [Hair cut], Ss 49 (17 May 1924), 9; pek Salarnz [Your silk hair],
Ss 5 (14 July 1923), 8; Ufak Kadn Ssleri: Yan Taraklar [Mini-ornaments for women];
Ss 53 (14 June 1924), 3; Salarn Kesmek stemeyen Hanmlara [To ladies who do not
want to cut her hair], Ss 53 (14 June 1924), 4.
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was profligate, devoted to dressing up and entertainment, lustful, and

morally corrupt.
The negative modern woman type was frequently encountered in popular writings of the period and often called a salon woman. This type
did not live up to the standards set for women, lacking as she did correct
womanly characteristics and instincts. The salon woman type frequently
appeared as a protagonist in popular literature of the 1920s and especially
in erotic short stories. In the following I discuss why popular erotic literature was a revolutionary site for illustrating changes brought to womens
lives in the 1920s, as society was transformed, dislodged from its imperial context, and shifted to that of a nation-state. Women were described
through two major literary tropes in these stories, relying on elements of
tragedy or comedy. Although the message that there was no place for this
kind of woman in the new regime was clear, the stories still promised hidden pleasures and fantasies for the common reader.
Erotic Popular Literature in 1920s Istanbul
Erotic popular stories based predominantly on free sexual relationships
between men and women first appeared in 1908, and this date is no coincidence: the libertarian air brought by the Second Constitution and the
abolition of long-standing censorship created an atmosphere of freedom
in which themes of public interest such as male-female relationships and
the changing world of women began to appear not only in magazines
and newspaper articles but also in other products of popular culture such
as stories and novels. Here I argue that after the Second Constitutional
period, sexual taboos began to weaken in part due to these erotic stories. A new interest in eroticism as distinct from romantic love seems to
have been another factor spurring the production of this literature. At
the root of all this lay a palpable transition from the traditional Ottoman
social structure, based in community, toward individualization as part of
the new citizen profile of the Republic. Moreover, and most interestingly,
starting with 1908 and up to the late 1920s, these stories were published
uncensored; then, at the end of the decade, with the consolidation of the
new regime in Turkey, censorship began to be applied and the stories
lost their erotic qualities, becoming increasingly didactic in a nationalistic
discourse.
Given how definitions of the obscene may vary by the individual, the
period, and the society, these stories from 1920s Istanbul might not be

considered particularly so by todays standards. But at a time when society had just begun to question established patterns of sexual segregation,
to place a man and woman together in a public space and have them
consummate their relationship outside of marriage must have been considered indecent indeed. Subject areas of these stories include the dissolution of the traditional social structure, womens participation in the
workforce after the war, the authority vacuum, and cosmopolitan life
during the Armistice period in Istanbul. We also witness the spread of
new norms and values imposed by the Republic, and the problems people
faced in trying to adapt to them.
Ninety-five popular erotic stories of the 1920s Istanbul were examined
for this study and, as noted above, they largely fall into one of two categories, didactic and humorous. In both, subject matter includes the modern
woman, male-female relationships, and the changing values of society;
but in the didactic stories, the author takes sides and frequently warns
readers to distinguish right from wrong. In such stories, the narrative centers on a central theme such as an old custom now deemed absurd, or a
new trend that is suspect, including marriage at a young age, the affectation of wealth, or poor upbringing. Some stories focus on social problems
such as venereal disease, prostitution, or gambling. The didactic stories
are without humor and carry tragic messages. They often end in disaster
and aim to impart a lesson. They express fears about individualization
in the changing and disintegrating social structure; they also promote
notions like community and patriotism, thus setting new parameters for
the individual and creating a new social ethicand at the heart of these
concerns lies the woman.
Even the humorous stories have a latent conservative and pedagogic
tone, although they differ greatly from the didactic tales in their psychological and social effects, since the comic spirit is a safety valve for erotic
fiction; it can be used to detach the reader from what he reads, freeing or
exonerating him from the feeling of voyeurism.3 Obscenity entails a flirtation with the forbidden, and given this place in the social imagination,
any relationship with the forbidden creates unavoidable psychological
tension. That is why making the reader laugh is an important technique
employed in erotic popular stories:4 the element of humor is helpful in
3Maurice Charney, Sexual Fiction, ed. Terence Hawkes (London: Methuen; New York:
New Accents, 1981), 165.
4Richard A. Waterman, The Role of Obscenity in the Folk Tales of the Intellectual
Stratum of Our Society, Journal of American Folklore 62, no. 244 (AprilJune 1949), 163.
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diminishing the sense of shame and discomfort at having connived at

and indulged in sexual stories and novels, if only as a reader. Laughter
facilitates a weakening of empathy for the scene; its effect is a kind of
alienation and a means to return to the real world from the fantasy world
of the erotic.5
Since they are to be taken less seriously and only seek to entertain, stories with humorous intent can pinpoint transformations in society without condemning. It is through this cathartic function of the comic erotic
stories, in which new women and men are portrayed in humorous positions and situations, that the woman is indirectly liberated. It is perhaps
an unintended effect that, in this way, the stern, moralistic-didactic tone
is dethroned.
Of course, the significance of these stories should not be sought in their
literary qualities, for almost all of them conform to formulaic popular
models:6 the plot is simple, the characters stereotypical. Yet by indulging in pleasure, suspense, excitement, and sexuality, they carry the reader
far from the monotony of daily life. And in doing so, they present malefemale relationships and the perspective on women in a given period (the
1920s) in a given place (Istanbul) along with the concerns and aspirations
of that societys collective memory. In this sense they offer material for
social historians.
Themes and Contents in Erotic Popular Stories
Love, passion, and betrayal are the main themes of erotic stories in which
the protagonists are coquettish women and inexperienced girls who fail to
understand the real meaning of modernization and freedom, being mesmerized only by the wicked aspects of Western mores. Earlier stories are
often published under pen names: Yorgo, Ahu Baba (Father Ahu), Cmbz
(Tweezers) or Kiraz (Cherry); as didactic narratives gained popularity in
the second half of the 1920s, however, authors began to use their real
names. The stories protagonists bore solidly Turkish, not minority-group,
5Richard A. Waterman, The Role of Obscenity in the Folk Tales of the Intellectual
Stratum of Our Society, 166.
6With regard to formulaic structures I favor John G. Caweltis discussions of popular
literature as made up of four main components: A formulaic structure, standardization
of stereotypes for men and women; entertainment and escapist value, and, finally, ideology. John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular
Culture (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), particularly 150.

names. At a time when a Turkish womans appearance on the theater
stage still caused a furor, it is striking that erotic stories featured them
prominently. Another significant aspect of popular literature, the relationship between supply and demand, can be glimpsed in circulation
statistics. While numbers are not available, the fact that the stories were
published weekly indicates high demand. This is perhaps because, as
Zafer Toprak emphasizes, they reflected the desires of generations with
respect to male-female relationships and ultimately aimed to meet the
expectations of the popular, mass reader.7
Stories were often produced as single or double folios, their covers illustrated with suggestive female, or male and female, figures. Inside we find
vignettes or caricatures of modern relationships. Events take place in
locations amenable to chance encounters such as the street, public transportation, patisseries, dance halls, tea parties, hotel lobbies, new neighborhoods, and recreational areas. Sexuality is always in the foreground
and marriage is never a prerequisite; a popular story line involves a married woman taking a lover, cheating on her husband. There are tales of
cunning, conniving, lustful women who seduce and ridicule men and
sometimes even lead them to commit suicide. The dominant setting is the
apartment way of lifeas distinct from the konak (mansion), kk (pavilion), and yal (waterside mansion) of the wealthier, traditional extended
families of Ottoman timesand new neighborhoods such as ili and
Nianta, were also popular tabloid material. Late Ottoman and early
Republican manners, codes of behavior, forms of entertainment, and concepts of beauty and fashion can also be accessed through these works.8
The best known series is comprised of 65 stories entitled Bin Bir
Buse, En en En uh Hikayeler [A thousand and one kisses; The merriest, most delightful stories]. Published weekly on Mondays in 24 pages,
the series makes up 16 books.9 (Figures 5.15.5 depict some cover illustrations from the series.) A second series, entitled only Bin Bir Buse but with
7Zafer Toprak, Merutiyetten Cumhuriyete Mstehcen Avam Edebiyat, Tarih ve

Toplum (January 1987), 27.
8Zafer Toprak, Merutiyetten Cumhuriyete Mstehcen Avam Edebiyat, 27.
9These exist as 16 individual fascicules with a cover price of 5 kuru for each, or as
an edition of two volumes of eight books, for 40 kuru each, printed in Istanbul by the
Amedi Printing House. After the sixth issue, Bin Bir Buses publication day was changed
to Wednesdays and as of the thirteenth issue, the day of release is no longer indicated
on the cover. Instead, the location of the offices is added to the copyright page. After the
fourth issue, caricatures appear on the front and back covers. Stories range from one to
eight pages in length.
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Figure 5.1.Cover page of Binbir Buse.
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d ifferent content, was published under the signature of the novelist and
publisher Mehmed Rauf;10 although only its sixth book has come to light
we are led by this to surmise that Mehmed Rauf was somehow related
to the Bin Bir Buse series as a whole. A brief introduction on the cover
reads, As the name suggests, Bin Bir Buse, En en En uh Hikayeler is a
lively, joyful, and risqu collection of stories. It is published on Thursdays
as a 32-page booklet. The books contain the best stories by Reat Nuri,
Mahmud Esad, zzet Ziya, Selami zzet, and Mehmed Rauf. For sale at
5 kuru. Printed in Istanbul in 1923 by the Orhaniye Publishing House, the
booklets back cover informs collectors that earlier issues are almost out
of print and thus should be purchased without delay.11
Another series is Genlik Demetleri [Bouquets of youth], whose first
book informs readers that The Complete Works of Uninhibited Stories:
Genlik Demetleri will present to readers an individual book such as this
one each week.12 Of the 22 books in the series13 one is priced at 25 kuru,
two at 15 kuru and the rest at 10 kuru each, depending on the number
of stories contained.14 The place of publication is again Istanbul, and the
10Mehmed Rauf (18751931) was a Turkish writer and member of the literary group,
Servet-i Fnn. He authored the novels Serap [Mirage] 1909; Bir Zambakn Hikyesi [The
story of a lily] 1910; Gen Kz Kalbi [A heart of a young girl] 1914; Meneke [Violet] 1915; Eyll
[September], 1920known as the first Turkish psychological novel; Karanfil ve Yasemin
[Carnation and jasmin] 1924; Brtlen [Blackberry], 1926; Son Yldz [The last star], 1927;
Define [Treasure], 1927; Kan Damlas [Drop of blood], 1928; as well as a large number of
short stories: htizar [Agony] 1909; Son Emel [The final goal] 1913; Hanmlar Arasnda
[Among ladies] 1914; Bir Akn Tarihi [The history of a love] 1915; Kadn sterse [If the
woman wills] 1919; Safo ve Karmen [Sappho and Carmen] 1920; Pervaneler Gibi [Like
a turning fan] 1920; lk Temas lk Zevk [First touch, first pleasure] 1922; Ak Kadn
[A woman of love] 1923; Gzlerin Ak [The love of eyes] 1924; and Eski Ak Geceleri
[Olden nights of love] 1927. He also published two womens magazines, Mehasin (1909)
and Ss [Ornament] (1924). For further information, see Rahim Tarm, Mehmet Rauf
Hayat ve Hikyeleri zerine Bir Aratrma [Research about Mehmet Rauf, his life and
stories] (Ankara: Aka Yaynlar, 2000).
11 Collectors should make haste since the early numbers are about to be exhausted
line on the back cover of the sixth book of Bin Bir Buse.
12Edhem zzet, Kz m Dul mu? [Girl or widow?], Genlik Demetleri 1 (Istanbul: Cemiyet
Ktphanesi, 1923).
13Some examples from the Bouquets of Youth Series: Kz m? Dul mu?, Fahienin
Gazab [Wrath of a prostitute], Bir Gnl Masal [A tale of heart], Nms Bels [The
scourge of honor], Kudurtan Geceler [Boogie nights], Ac Zevk [Painful pleasure], ldran
Kadn [Mad woman], Izdrap [Anguish], Kokain Fcialar [Disasters of cocaine], Sarhoun
Tvbesi [Repentance of a drunken man], Randevu Yerinde [At the appointment place], Ak
Mektuplar [Love letters], Sevgili Mektuplar [Lovers letters], kisi de Gebe [Both of them
are pregnant].
14Data on book prices of 1923 is not available. At this time a daily newspaper sold for
around 3 kuru, and womens magazines like Ss (Ornament) were 5 kuru. First-quality
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owner and publisher are identified as Cemiyet Ktphanesi. Cemiyet Ktphanesi also issued a second 22-book series bearing the title Fcia ve Ak
Serisi [Disaster and love series]; they were cheaper than Genlik Demetleri,
selling for 5 kuru each.15 The authors did not use pseudonyms but their
original names.
Apart from these sets, there are individually published books as well.
These may carry a subtitle such as Fantezi Bir Hikye [Fantasy story] or
Milli Bir Hikye [National story].16 Events are fictional, of course, as the
titles suggest, yet the narrative is highly realistic: the author frequently
addresses the reader directly, warning him not to feel empathy with the
text or characters; he underscores their faults and cautions the reader
from falling into similar traps.
The Suicide Motif in Popular Stories
According to the Trkiye timayat Enstits (Turkish Institute of Sociology), suicides increased in number during the 1920s.17 Quasi-fictional
suicide reports appeared in newspapers.18 This situation was inevitably
reflected in literature.
bread was 12.5 kuru (10 cents) a loaf in 1921. Laurence S. Moore, Sanayi Yaamnn
Baz Ynleri, in Istanbul 1920, ed. Clarence Richard Johnson (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt
Yaynlar, 1995), 155.
15Books issued in the Disaster and Love Series appeared in this order: ki Kocal Bir
Kadn [A woman with two husbands], adiye Boandktan Sonra [After adiyes divorce],
Mahmurenin Gebelii [The pregnancy of Mahmure], Kaynana [Mother-in-law], Grmce
[Sister-in-law], Batan kan Halime [Seduced Halime], ilide Bir Gece [A night in ili],
Kahpe Feride [Bitchy Feride], Ferdane, imdiki zdivalar [Current marriages], Gen Kzlar
Bilmelidirler ki [Young girls should know], Dul Kadnn Esrar [Mystery of a widow], Biz
mi Eleniyoruz Onlar m? [Who has more fun, us or the others?], Kadn Salar [Womens
hair], Yetimenin Kabri [Yetimes grave], Melekper, Mahpeyker, Mehl Bir Kahraman [An
unknown hero], Gzel Prens [The handsome prince].
16Mehmet Asaf, Cilveli Rana [Rn the coquette], Genlik Demetleri 12 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925).
17Zafer Toprak, Dr. Cemal Zekinin Delimen, lgn Kzlar: Cumhuriyette Gen Kz
Ve Kadn ntiharlar, Toplumsal Tarih, no. 87 (March 2001), 16.
18An item entitled Brothel Suicide that appeared in Vakit newspaper described the
suicide of a syphilitic man in a semi-fictional language: Server malul bir adamd. Dim
yatakta yatar, hastalndan ikayet ederdi. Dn akam saat sekiz vard. Biz birka kadn
aada oturuyorduk. Serverle Meserret Hanm kendi odalarnda idiler. Bir aralk Meserret hzla aaya indi. Aman kzlar bir yerimiz yanyor. Yank kokuyor! dedi. Aa kat
tamamen aradk. Yanan filn yoktu Sen yukary ara dedik. Ayn zamanda ben de yukar
ktm. Serverin yatt oday aryordum. Yatann baucunda elime bu kutu geti. Siyah
siyah haplar vard. bunlar ne? diye sordum: Server: hibir ey deil! diye cevap verdi.
Serverin yzne baktm. Az oynuyordu. Bir ey yiyor gibi geldi. Sordum: almm,

Suicide was a frequently employed motif particularly in popular erotic
stories featuring girls and women lacking control and discipline; it is often
found in stories with didactic tone and purpose. Fallen women or men
influenced by such women end by taking their own lives, particularly
in stories on the theme of the stranglehold of Western material values
over the Easts spiritual values, which leads to degeneration and social
problems. It is possible that suicides increased during the 1920s, reflecting
the individuals failure to adapt to the profound transformations of the
Republic; they may also be related to the male-dominated discourse of the
Republic and its moral restrictions.
Dr. Cemal Zeki, author of articles on suicide by girls and women as well
as a book entitled Gen Kz ve Kadnlarda ntihar: tima, Tbb [Suicide
among girls and women: Social, medical], invites parents to pay attention
to their girls behavior; he entreats them to prevent their daughters from
frequenting dance parties or bars as these are unsuitable forms of entertainment for young women.19
Suicides were believed to be a risk where social life was disorderly and
girls lacked strength of character. The need to exercise control and discipline over them to save the girls from despair during puberty, first by
parents and later by schools, had moved onto the agenda. Parents were
exhorted to keep girls and women under close supervision to prevent
improper peer influence; and to supervise not only their daughters but
their friends as well. Dr. Zeki explained that clever and headstrong young
women who refused supervision, who persuaded their friends to perform
unethical acts, who were unable to concentrate on their homework and
refused to bow to advice or punishment, should be kept away from the
school environment and sequestered; this to prevent their contagious
dudaklarm iniyorum! dedi. Bu esnada azndaki cigara dt. Cigara yar yarya kanla
memluydu. Hemen eildi ald. phelendim. Azna baktm. Kanla doluydu. Hemen kutuya
sarldk. Kendisine gsterdik. srar ettik. Nihayet afyon olduunu syledi. Evvela be tane
aldn syledi. Sonra onbe tane aldn syledi. Sonra onbe tane yediini onyedi liraya
yemi arsna kt gn tedrik ettiini syledi. Bu kadar afyonun kendisini ldreceini anladk. Anonymous, Ummhanede ntihar, Kuubann Olu Nasl ld? Vakit
(21 November 1922).
19Hassas, lgn kzlarn dansinglere, umm barlara devamlarna asla msade edilmemeli...Bulu devresindeki gen kzlar ahval-i rhiyyesinde iddetli buhranlar tevld eden
dansn ifratndan tevakki edilmesi temn edilmeli. Dans bir ihtiyc, bir moda, olmakla
beraber gen kzlarn elencesi deildir. Hassas, lgn, kzlarn dansinglere, umm barlara bilerek, bilmeyerek kendilerini birok felaketlere srkleyen bu gibi yerlere devamlarna asla msade edilmemelidir. Dr. Cemal Zeki, cited by Zafer Toprak in Gen Kz
ve Kadn ntiharlar II: Cumhuriyet Erkeinin Kadn mgesi, Toplumsal Tarih 99 (March
2001), 17.
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immorality from being transmitted to other girls. Above all, female sexuality had to be kept under control. For example, Dr. Zeki advised that girls
unable to restrain their lust be married off without delay and if possible
moved to the country and sequestered from society. He recommended
that such women be institutionalized if isolation, travel, mountain air,
and warm baths proved ineffective.20
Another dangerous influence on the young womens mental state is
love, perceived as a kind of trap that prevents girls from thinking rationally and leads them to calamity. To protect them from this hazard, girls
and women must be brought up to be sober, with well-developed powers of judgment.21 Suicide can end the life of unrestrained women who
have misinterpreted modernization and sought material, sensual pleasures above all elseit can also lead to the deaths of those affected by
her inconsiderate behavior. Of course it is necessary for such characters
to die so that their lives, representing all the wrong choices, do not set an
example for later generations and compromise the healthy, respectful,
useful Republican citizen model. Readers are given a clear message: there
is no future for individuals refusing to abide by social ethics and norms
of respectability.
Cilveli Rn [Rn the coquette], Damat Bey [The son-in-law],
Fuhu Kusmuu [Vomit of prostitution], Kudili Gelini [Bride from
Kudili], Sabir Efendinin Gelini [Sabir Efendis daughter-in-law], adiye
Boandktan Sonra [After adiyes divorce], and Sokak ve ayr Kzlar
[Street and meadow girls] all feature the suicide theme.22 The introduction to Rn the coquette, from 1925, describes the contents as a short
fantasy story. This is the drama of young siblings Kmran and Rn,
whose parents are lost in a world of pleasures and homosexual relationships. The young people do not approve of their parents lifestyle, yet are
powerless to change it, not having come of age. They are, moreover, in
love with a neighbor familys son and daughter, yet are not considered for
marriage because of their parents indecent behavior. Events turn tragic
20Toprak, Gen Kz ve Kadn ntiharlar II, 17.
21 Ibid., 18.
22Mehmet Asaf, Cilveli Rana, Genlik Demetleri 12 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1925); Mustafa Remzi, Damat Bey (Istanbul: Suhulet Matbaas, 1925); Vedat rfi, Fuhu
Kusmuu in Kz M Dul Mu?, 2738 (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1923); Mehmet Asaf,
Kudili Gelini (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925); Ercment Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin
Gelini (Istanbul: kbal Ktphanesi, 1922); Kaya Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia Ak
(Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1924); Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar (Istanbul:
Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1925).

when Kmran goes to Bursa for a change of air and sees nude pictures of
his mother in a photo album belonging to the father of a friend.23 Kmran
sends a letter with the photograph to his sister Rn, then jumps into a
river, commiting suicide.24 On receiving the letter, Rn shoots herself.25
These suicides also end the lives of the young people who love them;
Lmia, in love with Kmran, develops tuberculosis; Cell, in love with
Rn, dies from another illness.
The story thus depicts how the parents immoral lifestyle affects the
young. These are individuals focused on their own lives of perverse pleasure rather than on protecting their children from the dangers in the
world. Even the young peoples suicides do not persuade the parents to
renounce their indecent way of life.26
Cevdet, main character of The son-in-law (1925), is forced into an
arranged marriage at a young age and in the ensuing years is exposed to
Beyolu nightlife. Here his life experience is broadened and he falls in love
with another woman and leaves his wife.27 But she cannot tolerate the
thought of her husband marrying another and commits suicide.28 Criticizing marriage at an early age, the author warns parents in the introduction
about early and arranged marriages, noting that they can end in tragedy.29
23Asaf, Cilveli Rana, 37.
24Rana! Anamz olan nmssuzun plak bir resmini sana gnderiyorum. Bunu grrsen Melih Bey ilesi tarafndan niin reddedildiimizi takdr edersin! Zaten anamzn,
babamzn imdiki tarz- hayatlar sence de, bence de, herkesce de malm...Bizim gibi
ahlksz, pespaye bir ileden kim kz alr, kim kz verir? Analar haremde karlarla, babalar
selamlkta ab- amerdlerle vakit geiren bir familyann evldlar olmaklmz bizim iin
ne felket! Rana! Benim gzel kardeim! Artk yaamamaya karar verdim. Bilmem ki sen ne
fikirdesin! Hakkn hell et! efkatle gzlerinden perim hemireciim! Bedbaht kardein
Kamran. Asaf, Cilveli Rana, 38.
25Bir silah sesi saz da sz de alt st etti. Btn kktekilerkadn erkeksilah
sedasnn geldii kkn en st katna ktlar (...) Rana; kalbine tevcih ettii rovalvrle
hayatna hatime ekmiti. Asaf, Cilveli Rana, 39.
26...Ana baba; o ziya-y elimden zerre kadar mteessir olmayarak vur patlasn, al
oynasn eleniyorlar, zevk ediyorlar, mahbublarla, mahbubelerle oynamaktan, oynamaktan bkmyorlar, usanmyorlar, uslanmyorlar ve utanmyorlard. Lanet! Lanet! Lanet! Asaf,
Cilveli Rana, 40.
27Remzi, Damat Bey.
28Bir gece Semahatle Cevdet karyolalarnda cici cici yatarken mahallede bir lk
koptu bu ses, Hanife Hanmnd. nk Kevser odasna kt intihr iin sblme imi
ve lmt. Remzi, Damat Bey, 32.
29Esasen byle bir hle sebebiyet veren yine o eski kafallardr. Oullar veya torunlar; her kim ise on dokuz, yirmi yana gelir gelmez:Aman ocuk almadan ba gz
ediverelim, derler tutarlar p diye evlendirirler. Filvki henz o yata daha almayan,
grp geirmeyen zavall ocuk bir mddet gen zevcesiyle dp kalktktan sonra gnn
birinde arkadalaryla elenir, lem yapar. Ve o zaman hanyay konyay anlar. tabatiyle
baz geceler eve gelmemeyi, karsn ihml etmeyi det edinir. Bu zamanda herhangi bir
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The main theme is that children will suffer from their parents mistakes;
it is wrong to persist in the traditional Ottoman way of living within the
changing and modernizing social structure.
Vomit of prostitution (1923) is the story of a government employee
who is discharged after thirty-five years of service and unable to make
a living under the Armistice. Poverty drives him and his wife to suicide30
and, out of despair, their daughter is forced first to beg and then to prostitute herself. The girl tells Zeki, a client, that she could not bring herself
to commit suicide and became a prostitute to survive.31 Though the girl
had no other means to sustain herself, she suffered pangs of conscience
for the stain she left on her fathers honor.32
The moral of this story is that without parental custody girls can easily
become prostitutes, yet the girl forced into this by poverty is still preoccupied by her fathers honor. The honor of women may be under mens protection, yet women are also obliged to preserve their chastity and avoid
tarnishing the reputation of men.
Ercment Ekrems Sabir Efendis daughter-in-law (1922) includes an
unsuccessful suicide attempt.33 Belks, a beautiful and modern young
bride, leads a contemporary lifestyle, and does not veil herself in the presence of men. This behavior is criticized by Huriye, the other daughter-inlaw in the household, her mother-in-law Glendam, the maid Sofi, and
the housekeeper Eda.34 Belks is generally alone at home except for her
two brothers-in-law Selim and rfan, students at a prestigious high school.
Misreading her liberated behavior, rfan and Selim soon fall in love with
Belks. As a consequence of unreciprocated love, Selim becomes jealous
of his brother and attempts to commit suicide, but is rescued at the last
minute.35
genci abucak ba gz edivermek nazariyesinden kendimizi kurtarmalyz. Remzi, Damat
Bey, 23.
30Vedat rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, in Kz m? Dul mu? (Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi,
1923), 3637.
31 Vedat rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, 38.
32Her eyden ziyde babama acyorum!...Zavall babam!...tlisizliine ite en
byk misl. Otuz senelik hizmetinin ite yegne mkafat: Bir fuhu kusmuu!... Vedat
rfi, Fuhu Kusmuu, 38.
33Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini.
34Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini, 25.
35te rfan! O dakikada, beynime yldrmlar indi...anladm ki dnyada saadet denilen tatl eyde kimse iin msavat yok...Ve ben hibir zaman sizin bahtiyarlnz kadar
bahtiyar olamayacam...O hlde kendimi yok edip, meydan size bo brakmay, hi
olmazsa kskandm bir saadete ahit olarak her gn bir para yreimi kanatmayp birdenbire lmeyi kurdum. Bu husstaki kararmn size verecei memnniyyet u mektupta

Raised with old-fashioned norms and values by his mother and social
environment, Selim may get a modern education at school but is timid
and inexperienced in relationships. Influenced by his familys conception
of honor he misinterprets Belkis modern, but proper, behavior, leading
him to attempt suicide. Selim may have a modern education, but remains
the victim of an ill-adapted upbringing by the uneducated women of his
family.
On the inside cover of After adiyes divorce (1924),36 the subtitle
a disastrous love clearly signals the disaster ahead. adiye marries Tark,
a clerk at the Ottoman Bank, without her familys consent. Over the years,
Tarks behavior changes; he grows uninterested in adiye, stops looking
after the house, and takes up with a woman named Eleni. adiye remains
quiet for a time but soon succumbs to neglect and misery and asks for
a divorce. Divorced, however, adiye cannot return to her family, who
disowned her when she eloped. She seeks shelter with a family friend,
Glsm, who tries to sell her off to a man whom she pretends is a relative. adiye writes a letter to her mother and commits suicide; from it we
understand that adiye had contracted syphilis from Tark. She is unable
to return to her family since she has a venereal disease and lives in a
brothel. In despair, she commits suicide, as expected of a virtuous woman.
Her upbringing directs her to preserve her honor, ending her life before
being forced to prostitute herself.37
Once again, behind the suicidal finale lie notions of honor and upbringing, as well as, here, family consent as a prerequisite for marriage. Arranged
marriages may not particularly be favored, but family approval of marriage partners is generally emphasized. adiye undoubtedly made a bad
decision in marrying a man the family rejected; this decision initiates a
chain of calamities that ends in suicide.
Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar (1925) is a book of eleven stories.38 Suicide is
dealt with differently here, as its victims are men, while the young women
itiraf ettiim ufak kusurlar elbette affettirir. Sizden yalnz bir ricam var. Ona syleyiniz
de intihrmn her devr-i seneyisinde mezarma bir demet iek getirip braksn! Selim
Biaresi Ekrem, Sabir Efendinin Gelini, 25.
36Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia Ak.
37Herif canavar gibi nmsuma taaruz etmek iin urayordu. Bir saat kadar mcdelede bulunduk. Kendisine teslm iin direndike cebr-i iddet gsteriyordu. (...) Fakat
mmkn m idi ki alaa teslm olaym! nk sizin verdiiniz terbiye bana kfi idi! Sizden aldm ahlk dersi ahlkm metin etmiti... Nuri, adiye Boandktan Sonra Fcia
Ak, 18.
38Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar.
192
fatma tre
who prompt them are femmes fataleseducated to a certain extent and

unimpeded in their pursuit of physical love and sexual freedom, they
take a bizarre pleasure in the suicides.39 The narrator is also a character;
he accompanies the women and, asks them questions on love, sexuality,
and gender equality, inducing them to speak freely; yet he always, ultimately, disapproves of them.40 Story endings typically convey a mission
of deterring such bold and adventurous women from despicable adventures.41 The schoolgirls in Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar lack proper upbringing
and parental controlusually one or both parents are deceasedand are
firm believers in physical love. They do not die in any of the stories and so
continue to pose a threat to society with their dangerous notions.
It is noteworthy that none of the stories featuring suicide has any room
for humor. The narrator interrupts the text to speak to the reader, declaring that women who lead men to suicide are dangerous individuals and
bad citizens, incapable of raising the next generation. In some of the stories introductions or conclusions we even find discussions of how such
girls and women should be made useful to society.
39Bir sabah Erdekte fec bir haber i oldu. ekerzade smail Efendinin olu Hasan
odasnda kolunun damarlarn makasla keserek intihr etmi. Bu intihra sebep bir akm.
Latifeyi seviyormu. Bu vakadan sonra daym beni Erdekte tutmad. lk posta ile Bursaya
iade etti. te hayatmda yegne zevk duyduum, mtehasss olduum ilk bir vaka budur.
Bir gencin benim iin hayatn feda etmesi gururumu o kadar okuyor ki, imdi yine size
anlatrken deta sevincimden ldryordum. Ibid., 33; ...Bununla kur yapmaya baladm. Belki ay elendim...Hizmetisi vastasyla bana bir mektup yollayarak randevu
istiyordu. Kabul ve cbet ettim. O gn dikkat ettim. ocuk esmer, iek bozuu, irkin bir
eymi. Tab ognden itibren onunla alkam kestim. Hlbuki o beni ok sevmi...bensiz yapamayacan dnerek intihr etmi. (...) Dnyada en ziyde houma giden ey
beni sevenlerin ocukluunu, azbn grmektir. Ibid., 3839; ...ak tamamiyle maddi
olarak kabul etmek lzmdr. Ak iin intihrlar ise maddi bir kymeti elinden kayp eden
insanlarn tevsil ettii bir are-i yeis ve hicrn olarak telkki etmek zarrdir.Tasavvur
ediniz Tiraje Hanm bir gen sizin iin intihr etmi hemen szm kesti:Ah!...benim
iin bir gen deil tam gen intihr etti.Hi mteessir olmadnz m?Ben hayatmda tesrin ne demek olduunu daha tanmadm hi? Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr
Kzlar, 51.
40Bu ak kan damlalaryla ssleyen, bu cinayetten vahi bir zevk duyan bu akn kzdan irenmitim. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 33; Neslimin bu dkn kzn
nefret ve lanetle yd ediyordum. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 39; Bu bedbaht
kzn ak hakkndaki telkkisi beni ok mteessir etmiti. (...) Bu zavall kzn kalbimde
yaratt hisler merhamet ve efkatten ziyde onun mensb bulduu hisse kar lanet ve
nefret hlinde tebeller etmiti. Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 51.
41 Safaeddn Rza, Sokak Ve ayr Kzlar, 2.

Comic Spirit in Erotic Stories
We noted above how humor may be used to make light of prohibitions
and social pressures and put the reader at ease;42 how laughter releases
the reader from tensions created by obscenity.43 The comic type of erotic
story of the 1920s again tackles societys changing values, the relationships
of couples who misread modernization, new codes of etiquette, and recreational life. However, unlike the darker and more didactic genre, these
stories end not in disasterous consequences for innocent and guilty alike,
but in laughter, which makes light of the subject.
Many examples of this 1920s Ottoman-Turkish erotic popular literature
bear similarities to the French fabliaux; 61 of 95 stories studied have humorous elements.44 While some of the stories end with a joke, as in Neden
Belli [It is obvious], Kurt mu Koyun mu? [Wolf or lamb?], Kaynanann
Fedakarl [A mother-in-laws self-sacrifice], Otuzdrdnc [The thirtyfourth], Hayrkr Bir Dost...Bir Hmi [A magnanimous friend...a patron],
Masumiyet [Innocence]; others bear a comic spirit, either through a
metaphor as in Afv [Forgiveness], Bir Rya [A dream], Mjgann Kedisi
[Mjgns kitty], Fare [The mouse]; or by reversing the course of events as
in Bir Dubarac [A slick one], and Bir ntikam [Revenge]. Humorous motifs
are especially common in stories from the Bin Bir Buse series.45
42Peter Narvaez, Introduction: The Death-Humor Paradox, in Of Corpse: Death and
Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture (Logan: Utah State University, 2003), 1.
43Thomas D. Cooke, Pornography, the Comic Spirit, and the Fabliaux, in The Humor
of the Fabliaux: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Benjamin L. Honeycutt and Thomas D.
Cooke (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), 162.
44Thomas D. Cooke, Pornography, the Comic Spirit, and the Fabliaux, 160. The
French fabliaux of the thirteenth century and Steven Marcuss definition of the pornographic story and novel show similarities: in both, there is an emphasis on the act. Long
descriptions, for example of the psychological state of characters, and long dialogues are
rarely encountered. The most important difference lies in the presence or absence of the
comic. According to Marcus, there is no comic spirit in pornographic novels; everything
takes place in a fantasy world and the ideal is to remain there. In the fabliaux, however, it
is instinctively understood that the created world of fantasy is merely a place of recreation;
one has fun and departs in laughter.
45Neden Belli?, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikayeler no. 1, 711 (Istanbul: med
Matbaas, 19231924); Cmbz, Kurt Mu Koyun Mu?, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler,
no. 2, 36 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Yorgo, Kaynanann Fedkrl, in Bin
Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler no. 3, 2023 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Ahu
Baba, Otuz Drdnc, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 4, 1016 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924); Hayrkr Bir Dost...Bir Hmi, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En
uh Hikyeler, no. 7, 1218 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Masumiyet, in Bin Bir
Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 8, 2022 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Ahu
Baba, Afv, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 3, 39 (Istanbul: med Matbaas,
194
fatma tre
The theme of impotence is a frequent one; for example, an emasculated man finds himself in the company of a sexually liberated or powerful woman, resulting in embarrassment. In Mlkat Saatine ntizaren
[Pending a rendezvous], while waiting to meet his lover, Nazl, Cemil
Nuri finds the time to frolic with women he has met on the way and is
exhausted by the time the actual rendezvous takes place; he is unable to
perform and is embarrassed before his lover.46 Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe [The misfortunes of poor Seher: The first experience] and
Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat [The misfortunes of poor Seher:
Young, but...] follow the adventures of Seher, who has lost her husband
in a tram accident at a young age and is in search of a lover to gratify
her insatiable urges.47 In a first attempt, Seher tries to seduce the elderly
doctor who examines her, but he confesses impotence and must turn her
away.48 Sehers second attempt is with the young playboy, Recep, who
proves unable to oblige for similar reasons.49
The stories Byl Haplar [Magic pills] and ki are [Two remedies]
relate the adventures of individuals who resort to pharmaceutical methods to fight impotence.50 In Byl Haplar, the themes of womans infidelity and impotence are brought together. aziye and Cemil have been
19231924); Bir Rya..., in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 5, 1016 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924); Mjgnn Kedisi, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler,
no. 9, 310 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Fare, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh
Hikyeler, no. 10, 1822 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Bir Dubarac, in Bin Bir
Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 12, 1118 (Istanbul: medi Matbaas, 19231924); Bir
ntikam, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 15, 915 (Istanbul: med Matbaas,
19231924). [[Au/Ed: where titles have been translated once in the text, they do not need
to be repeated in the notes, okay?]]
46Mlakt Saatine ntizaren, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 2 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924).
47Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler,
no. 3 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924); Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat...,
in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 4 (Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924).
48-Ah doktor bey; bilseniz; bilseniz; diye inledi.Doktor bir teessf hattyla aln burumu olduu hlde, derin bir ah ekti:Anlyorum hanmefendi...Anlyorum...Fakat nasl
syliyeyim, maatteessf, elimden birey gelmez...Birey yapmaya muktedir deilim...
Seherciin Bana Gelenler: lk Tecrbe., 10.
49Nihyet, Receb Bey geldi; ve tam kadnc bir erkek gibi gelir gelmez hi; evveliyta
lzm grmeden, hemen kaleye hcm etti. (...) Fakat muhcim, daha ilk hcm hareketine yeni balam, mahsur ehri yeni ihata etmi, daha kaleye takarrb bile etmemiti ki,
velvele ve teennc hareketleriyle, ferydlar, ennlerle, gevedi, ve btb, mezbuh, uzand
kald. Seherciin Bana Gelenler: Gen, Fakat..., 23.
50Cmbz, Byl Haplar, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 5 (Istanbul:
med Matbaas, 19231924); ki are, in Bin Bir Buse: En en En uh Hikyeler, no. 9
(Istanbul: med Matbaas, 19231924).

married for a year. Their sex life suffers due to Cemils impotence; it is
thought that Cemils countless affairs prior to marriage have exhausted
him.51 On a friends suggestion, Cemil begins to use special pills imported
from Egypt. These are so effective that, four months later, his wife gives
birth to twins!52 In ki are the protagonist seeks help from a pharmacist
and is offered two options: one is for diminishing the womans lust and
the other for increasing the mans potency.53 He first opts for the first
pill to decrease her sexual desire but later purchases the second one to
increase his own.
As the tension created by eroticism is released by humor another function comes into play, especially in light of the constraints on male-female
relationships in a society in transition. By staging modern relationships
and frivolous, lustful, and falsely modernized women as comic elements,
this potential source of anxiety is transported into a fantasy world. The
readers discomfort is diffused in laughing at fantasy women and relationships, and returns to the real world where there is surely no room for
such stuff.
To conclude, the female protagonists of these popular erotic stories
display all the traits disapproved of by the patriarchal discourses of Islam
and nationalism; they are lustful and demanding, aware of their sexuality
and sexual power and do not hesitate to use these even at the price of
upsetting the social order or reversing gender roles. None of them have
children,54 nor do they work or have careers; they are unfaithful, disrespectful women open to all the pleasures of life. They stand as antithesis to both the prudent, decorous, and upright Islamic female figure who
51 Delikanl ok apknlk etmi ve snm bir adam idi. (...) Fakat bir ay gememiti
ki, Cemil aziyenin hcmlarna mukavemetten ciz kalmaya balad; birka teebbsten
sonra, hezimet-i kahkariye sbit oldu... Cmbz, Byl Haplar., 19.
52Dostu onu dikkatle dinledi. Ve ona bir hap tavsiye etti. Bu hap Msrda yaplyordu,
fakat eczhnenin adresi malum olduu in sipri kolayd. Cemil hi durmadan para
gnderip sipri etti. On be gn sonra kutu hap geldi. Tarft Arabca olduu in
anlama kbil deilse de Cemil tesrini grmek in ilk akam drt tane hap ald. Drt ay
sonra aziye bir ikiz ocuk dourdu. Byl Haplar., 10.
53...Bu meselenin iki tarz- hlli vardr. Birincisi zevceniz hanmdaki ateli arzularn
fazla harretini sndrmektir. (...) Bu ienin iindeki ilc syesinde refikanz det bir
odun hline gelecektir. Bunun ad mnevvimdir. (...) Eczac ayn cmekndan krmz
renkli kda sarlm baka bir ie kararak: Bu ilcdan da sabah akam siz kendiniz
bir kak alacak olursanz snm veya uyumu arzularnz, yirmi yanda bir gen gibi
galeyn edeceklerdir. (...) Bunun ad muharrikdir... ki are, 1819.
54Only in the story Selmann lk Kocas [Selmas first husband], the Selma character
has a baby, but she kills it. Mustafa Remzi, Selmann lk Kocas, in Selmann lk Kocas
(Istanbul: Cemiyet Ktphanesi, 1928), 11.
196
fatma tre
prizes domesticity above all; and to the virtuously efficient, educated, and
sexless female figure of the nationalist ideal.
In none of these stories does one encounter the ideal female type in the
same scene as her decadent counterpart, for immoral women types can
be imagined only in environments where the worst fears about female
sexuality become real within a corrupted social order. The didactic stories
stage these types in order to instruct women what not to do and which
values to adopt. In doing so they guide them toward ideal female roles,
thus speaking in the same voice as the literary canon of the period.
In these erotic tales, female characters and relationships unfit for the
social order tend to be neutralized either by suicide or through humor.
While in didactic stories narrators actively intervene to prevent the reader
from empathizing with the story and its characters, inviting them to return
to the real world by means of plot elements such as suicides and other
tragic endings that symbolically remove the intolerable evil portrayed,
humorous stories accomplish a similar end but by making light of threatening situations through comedy. Both the didactic and comic erotic stories offer a fantasy world in which late Ottoman/early Republican societys
fears about women as sexual beings are given shape and form. Protagonists are depicted as either powerful women who control men with their
sexual wiles or, in contrast, especially after 1924, these women are more
and more depicted as destructive. While comic erotic stories reflect the
social disintegration after years of secrecy and seclusion, and the excitement and awkwardness felt by men and women now sharing the same
environment, the moral erotic stories reflect societal anxieties, fears, and
defenses. In both versions of popular literature, women have become the
embodiment of late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish societies contradictory feelings about modernization.

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Part Four
Womanhood in Print Culture
Chapter Nine
Enlightened Mothers and Scientific Housewives:

Discussing Womens Social Roles in Eurydice (Evridiki)
(18701873)
Anastasia Falierou
Womens journals and periodicals of the late Ottoman period reveal perceptions, views, and demands of Ottoman women and contribute greatly
to discovering womens voices and restoring them to their place in history.1
Magazine pages function as a platform where intellectual, political, and
social debates took place, at the same time permitting women to express
themselves and participate in the public sphere. The periodical, thus,
became a channel of dissemination for new ideas, a forum of discussion
and comparison of different, sometimes even opposing viewpoints.
It is unfortunate that Ottoman gender studies have not paid enough
attention to womens periodicals of different ethnic and religious
communities2 of the Empire. In fact, we are far from having a complete
image of Ottoman womens experiences, mainly because most of the studies on the issue concern the lives of Muslim Turkish women.3 Lack of
1 For journals importance as a source of information see Beth Baron, The Womens
Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994)
and Margaret Beetham, A Magazine of Her Own: Domesticity and Desire in the Womans
Magazine, 18001914 (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).
2For a first attempt to study the non-Turkish womens press and feminist movement,
see Lerna Ekmekiolu and Melissa Bilal, Bir Adalet Feryad Osmanldan Trkiyeye Be
Ermeni Feminist Yazar (18621933) (Istanbul: Aras, 2006) and Victoria Rowe, A History of
Armenian Womens Writings: 18801992 (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2003).
3Some important works on this field are Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1993); Aynur Demirdek, Osmanl Kadnlarn Hayat Hakk Araynn
Bir Hikayesi (Ankara: mge Kitabevi, 1993); Elizabeth Frierson, Unimagined Communities:
Women and Education in the Late-Ottoman Empire 18761909, Critical Matrix 9 (1995),
5590: Elizabeth Frierson, Mirrors Out, Mirrors In: Domestication and Rejection of the
Foreign in the Late Ottoman Womens Magazines (18751908), in Women, Patronage and
Self-representation in Islamic Societies, ed. D. Fairchild Ruggles (Albany: State University
New York Press, 2001), 177205; Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women and Work in the Ottoman
Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923) (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2005); efika Kurnaz, kinci Mertiyet Dneminde Trk Kadn (Istanbul: Milli Eitim Bakanl Yaynlar, 1996); Zafer Toprak, The
Family, Feminism, and the State during the Young Turk Period, 19081918, in Premire
202
anastasia falierou
material, linguistic obstacles, and in some cases ideological considerations

all explain the neglect of the non-Turkish womens press.
The present paper aims to study Eurydice (Evridiki), a Greek womens
periodical published in Constantinople between 1870 and 1873. Although
Eurydice was neither the first Greek womens periodical in the Ottoman
Empire nor the longest lasting, it is of special interest because it combines
the individual and collective experiences of Ottoman Greek women while
relating the woman question to the nationalist discourse. Eurydice was
a womens magazine published by Emilia Ktena-Leontias.4 The ideas presented in the periodical reflect to a great extent those of Sappho Leontias,5
a prolific writer, distinguished teacher, girls school headmistress and the
sister of Eurydices editor Emilia Ktena-Leontias. Interestingly, the periodicals first issue is dated to 21 November 1870, which is about nine months
after the establishment of the autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate and its
separation from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
The present article focuses on the arguments put forth by eminent
members of the Greek Orthodox community of Istanbul concerning
female nature, and demonstrates that the woman question became
especially critical after the Bulgarian Exarchate separated from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as the Greek elite clearly focused on its own civilizing mission for the sake of the nation. Eurydices publication is of great
importance in this context, as the journal explicitly promoted the Greek
Orthodox identity by emphasizing the womens mission in this process.
The following analysis consists of three parts: In the first part, I provide
an introduction to the periodical. In the second, I present the discourse
on women in the Greek Orthodox community during the period leading
up to the publication of Eurydice. Finally, I investigate the images of the
ideal housewife and good mother as proclaimed in Eurydice.
Recontre Internationale sur lEmpire Ottoman et la Turquie Moderne, ed. Edhem Eldem
(Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1991), 441452; and Nicole A. N. M. van Os, Ottoman Womens
Reaction to the Economic and Cultural Intrusion of the West: The Quest for a National
Dress, in Dissociation and Appropriation Responses to Globalization in Asia and Africa, ed.
Katja Fllberg-Stolberg, et al. (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische Buch, 1999), 291308.
4In Eurydices first issue, we learn that a special committee will direct the periodical.
5Sappho Leontias was born in Istanbul in 1832. A student of French, German, and
Greek literature, she translated Racine, published a home economics book for girls in 1877,
wrote several articles, and gave lectures. Sappho Leontias worked as a teacher and from
1854 onward directed several schools for girls in Samos, Izmir, and Constantinople (Pallas),
including the girls school of Saint Fotini (Agia Fotini) in Izmir. Eurydice (Evridiki) thus
offers us a window through which to glimpse her personality.
enlightened mothers and scientific housewives
203
The Periodical
The periodicals name Eurydice (Evridiki) came from Greek mythology.
According to the myth,6 the nymph Eurydice was the beloved wife of
Orpheus, son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope. Orpheus had been
taught by his father to play the lyre with such perfection that nothing
could withstand the charm of his music. When Eurydice died, bitten by
a snake, Orpheus went down to Hades to bring her up. Hades promised
to let her go, on the condition that Orpheus should not turn around to
look at her until they reached the open air. Unfortunately, Orpheus disobeyed and turned round to hold his wife and Eurydice returned to the
underworld. Having lost his love forever, Orpheus remained aloof from
womankind, constantly recollecting his tragedy.
Eurydice was a womans review comprised of the contributions of eminent male and female writers of the Greek Orthodox community. Emilia
Ktena remained Eurydices only editor and publisher throughout its publication. The periodical was initially published weekly. Later, it was published every ten days, then every five days, and finally twice a month. Its
head office was located in Galata in Yorgacolu no. 37 and after some time
was transferred to Muuru Han no. 30.
The review was illustrated and as indicated on its front page included
several designs for needlework and embroidery. The price of each issue
was 2.5 kurus. Its structure changed from time to time, both its shape and
contents were continually enriched. Over the course of its publication,
the number of pages varied from eight to twenty-four, with most issues
consisting of sixteen pages (figure 6.1).
Written by well known personalities in addition to the editors sister
Sappho Leontias, the main article always appeared on the first page. By
and large, the themes of the journal concerned womens destiny in society
and female education. In some cases, the main article was concerned with
biographies of female personalities, from all historical periods, who had
gained great honor and respect because of their self-sacrificing spirit and
love for the country. Anonymous articles belonged usually to the editor.
On subsequent pages the reader found articles on issues such as geography, history, mores and customs, advice on domestic work and household
6For a more detailed analysis, see Gerda Schwarz, Eurydike 1, in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. IV/1 (Zurich and Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1988), 98100.
204
anastasia falierou
Figure 6.1.First page of the periodical Eurydice, volume 48, 1872. Anastasia
Falierous private collection.
205
Source: Ethnika Philanthropika Katastimata en Konstantinoupoli. Imerologion etous 1907,

Constantinople, 1906.
Figure 6.2.Young girls learning to sew clothes in the Ladies Charitable Society
of Pera.
management, as well as information on infant physiology and proper childrearing (figure 6.2).
Apart from the articles dedicated to womens questions, the periodical
included literary texts and poems. Finally, on the last page, the reader
could find announcements for teachers seeking jobs, i.e., for private tutoring, or announcements concerning cultural events such as the publication
of new books, the organization of plays, balls or conferences. Notices, puzzles, and the correspondence column also appeared on the same page.
Eurydice was initially financed by subscriptions, which were yearly, halfyearly or quarterly for Constantinople and yearly or half-yearly for readers from outside the city. Subscriptions were paid in advance. An annual
subscription was 6 silver mecidiye in Constantinople and 7 silver mecidiye
abroad. In that period, subscribers were regarded as reliable readers and
subscriptions were the main source of income for periodicals. The way to
increase the number of subscribers and consequently the number of sales
was to popularize the magazine. Therefore, the magazine organized frequent
lotteries or puzzles in order to attract the interest of a larger readership.
Although we do not have any information about the periodicals print
run, the names of the associate partners appearing on the last page, from
various cities both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, reveal that
the periodical was distributed in an extensive area: Constantinople, the
Princes Islands, Izmir, Trabzon, Philippoupolis (actually Plovdiv), Varna,
206
anastasia falierou
Alexandria, Bitola, Edirne, Iznik, Castelorizo, Salonika, Corfu, Crete,

Chios, Larissa, Mitilini, Samos, Ruuk, Ioannina, Forty Churches (actually
Krklareli), Simi, Athens, but also Boston, Venice, Geneva, and Marseille.
Apparently, the journal reached Greek readers in a wide Ottoman geography and beyond.
The Discourse on Women in the Greek Orthodox Community:
The Origins
In Ottoman Greek society women were valued according to their subservience and household abilities. Regarded as inferior to men, they often
lived a life of seclusion, deprived of all forms of organized and higher education. Often they could not even attend primary schools. Typically, it was
believed dangerous for girls to learn to write because they would be able
to write love letters and flirt. It seems that this sort of prejudice was quite
widespread among the Ottoman Greek bourgeoisie.7
Liberal ideas reached the Ottoman Empire through the European
Enlightenment,8 raised questions about the equality of the sexes, and
opened the way for a reconsideration of womans status in society. Originating both from the Phanariot aristocracy and the bourgeois class, the
first generation of Greek intellectual women dealt with the problem of
female education in their writings. They were not afraid to criticize the
dominant patriarchal constraints condemning women to ignorance and
oppression, however, they never challenged such major patriarchal concepts as the submissive complementary helpmate, according to which a
woman was legitimized as an extension of her husband. As Kitromilides
points out, although the Enlightenment led to a recognition of the female
predicament, it did not amount at the same time to a vindication of the
rights of women.9 Consequently, in this early period, the female presence was acknowledged as less invisible but nevertheless still lacking
all autonomy.10
7Tatiana Stavrou, [The Greek Literary Association of Constantinople] (Athens: n.p., 1967), 82.
8For the connection between the European Enlightenment and the woman question,
see Paschalis M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood: Cultural Change and
the Politics of Exclusion, Journal of Modern Hellenism 1 (1983), 3961.
9M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood, 39.
10M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood, 52.
207
With the Tanzmt reforms, equal rights were granted to all Ottoman
subjects regardless of their language, religion, and ethnicity and this
opened the way for the status of Greek women to become part of the
social agenda. The question of womens status gained importance as a
result of the general conditions of Greek prosperity throughout the nineteenth century. As is well known, Greeks held a special place11 in the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the Ottoman capital, amounting
to about one-fourth of the citys population.12 The Greek community
was dominant in banking and various forms of international and local
commerce.13 Greek merchants had developed relations with their European counterparts in all the port cities and controlled most transactions
throughout the Empire. These close relations to the Western world permitted Greek merchants to quickly adopt Western ideas and ways of life,
including new approaches to womens position in society.
Moreover, Greeks traditionally occupied important offices in the Ottoman administration.14 They served as translators of the imperial divan
and dragomans in the navy at least until 1821. Retaining to a great extent
the old Phanariot tradition, Greeks occupied prominent posts in Ottoman
diplomacy. In this period the Greek communitarian press also flourished;15
11 For a general overview on the position of Greeks in the nineteenth century, see Roderic H. Davison, The Millets as Agents of Change in the Nineteenth-century Ottoman
Empire, in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society,
ed. B. Braude and B. Lewis (New York and London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1982),
319337.
12The number of people living in the Ottoman capital in 1882 has been estimated as
873,575 souls. For Constantinoples population in general see Stanford Shaw, The Population of Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century, Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979), 403414. Especially for
the Greeks, see A. Synvet, Les Grecs dans lEmpire Ottoman (Constantinople, 1878), 3.
13In the 1840s almost all distinguished bankers were Greeks. Greek banking reached its
peak between 1840 and 1881 by establishing private banking houses and the participation
in socit anonyme banks and by acting as moneylenders to the Porte; in this way the Galata bankers succeeded in wielding power both in the economic and political sense. For the
dominant position of Greeks in economic and monetary activities, see Haris Exertzoglou,
The Development of a Greek Ottoman Bourgeoisie: Investment Patterns in the Ottoman
Empire, 18501914, in Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics, Economy, and
Society in the 19th Century, ed. D. Gonticas and Ch. Issawi (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press,
1999), 89107 and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, Greek Diaspora Bankers, 18401881, Financial Historical Review 9 (2002), 125146.
14Alexander Karatheodoris and Stephanos Mousouros are two good examples. The
former became deputy foreign minister, while the latter was appointed ambassador to
Greece. On this issue see Alexis Aleksandris,
, 18561922 [The Greeks in the service of the Ottoman Empire, 18561922]
Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon 23 (1980), 365404.
15In some areas such as the satirical press, Greeks were pioneers. As early as 1870
Theodor Kassapis published the first satirical periodical to be published in the Ottoman
208
anastasia falierou
not only big dailies but also reviews and periodicals of all kindsreligious,
literary, medical, satirical, periodicals for children and womenwere
published or translated into Greek. Well-versed in European languages,
the Greeks were also active in translating16 into Ottoman Turkish.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Greeks founded schools,
cultural associations (syllogoi), and hospitals which to a great extent were
financed by the fortunes of bankers. The economic and cultural ascendancy of the Greeks seems to have encouraged members of the elite to
search for solutions to improve the quality of life of the underprivileged
groups of population, including women, orphans, and beggars.
The number of students registered in the girls schools was continually
increasing. Established in Pera, in 1850, the Central School for Girls (Kentriko Parthenagogeio)17 consisted of about 100 girls. Twelve years later in
1862, their number had increased to about 500.
The first periodical in the Greek Orthodox community dedicated to
womens issues with a woman editor was entitled Kypseli18 and was published by Euphrosyne Samartzidou in 1845, while the first Armenian one
named Gitar appeared in 1862. Some years later, in 1869, the first Turkish
magazine for women called Terakki [Progress] entered circulation and in
1887 there appeared kfezar, the first Turkish womens periodical with
a female editor.
Empire; it was called Diyogen. On the Greek community press, see Ali Arslan,
[The Greek
press in the Ottoman state as it is presented through the documents of the period], trans.
Chr. L. Pampalos (Athens: Eptalofos 2004) and Stratis D. Tarinas,
(Istanbul: Iho, 2007).
16Johann Strauss, The Millets and the Ottoman Language: The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters (19th20th Centuries), Die Welt des Islams 35 (1995),
189249.
17Koula Xiradaki, [Girls schools
and teachers of the unredeemed Hellenism] (Athens: Prometheus 1972), 5962.
18leni Fournaraki, :
( 1845) [An early female attempt at journalism: Kypseli by
Euphrosyne Samartzidou (Constantinople 1845)], in Proceedings of the International Conference of Womens Discourse, ed. Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Greek
Philology (Komotini, 2006 and Athens, 2008), 3754, and leni Fournaraki, in
Egkiklopaideia tou Ellinikou Typou 17841996. fimerides, Periodika, Dimosiografoi, Ekdotes
[Kypseli in Encyclopedia of Greek press 17841996: Newspapers, periodicals, journalists,
publishers], ed. Loukia Droulia and Yioula Koutsopanagou, vol. 2 (thens: I/, 2008),
677678.
209
By 186070 the womens question19 had begun to gain ground in the

form of regular articles in the press and general publications. In fact, this
decade seems crucial for the progress of the Greek millet in general and
special attention should be given to the years 1861 and 1862. The year 1861
is key in the chronology of the womens question in the Greek Orthodox
community because of the foundation of the Greek Literary Association of
Constantinople (en Konstantinoupoli Ellinikos Philologikos Syllogos) and
the Ladies Charitable Society of Stavrodromi (Philoptohos Adelfotis ton
Kirion tou Stavrodromiou).
Among the Greek (cultural) associations founded in the Ottoman
Empire, the Greek Literary Association of Constantinople20 is considered
the most prestigious not only because of its members social status
among its twenty-eight members in 1861 there were three teachers, an
intellectual, ten doctors and fourteen bankersbut also because of its
mission and its long years of activity (18611922). The Greek Literary
Association declared its mission as spreading literacy to the Orthodox
people of the Ottoman state in general, and more particular to the female
sex, without any discrimination regarding origin and language.21 Indeed,
this was the first time that the issue of female education appeared on the
agenda in such an affirmative way.
The Ladies Charitable Society of Stavrodromi was the longest lasting
Greek womens charity association.22 As indicated in its charter, the aim
of the association was to help the ill and the poor by offering them financial or material support and opportunities to work. There were obvious
connections between the two associations as the members of the Ladies
Charitable Society were, by and large, wives of Greek Literary Association
members.
19Lida Istikopoulou, (18601922)
[The Greek carpet-manufacturing and the Greek woman carpet manufacturer in Asia
Minor (18601922)] (Athens: Hestia, 2000), 131155 and Efi Canner,
[Discourses on women in the
Greek Orthodox literate community of Constantinople], Istorika 35 (2001), 299334.
20See Haris Exertzoglou, 19 [National
identity in Constantinople in the 19th century] (Athens, 1996) and George A. Vassiadis,
The Syllogos Movement of Constantinople and Ottoman Greek Education 18611923 (Athens:
Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 2007).
21 Kiriaki Mamoni and Lida Istikopoulou,
(18611922) [Womens associations in Constantinople] (Athens: Hestia, 2002), 20.
22On the Greek charity associations see Efi Canner,
17531912 [Poverty and philanthropy in the Orthodox community of Constantinople 17531912] (Athens: Katarti, 2004) and Mamoni and
Istikopoulou, .
210
anastasia falierou
The General Ordinances (Genikoi Kanonismoi) were instituted in 1862,

which thus marks a turning point in the history of the Greek community.
With these regulations the shift from the pre-national world of religious
identity to secularism gained strength. The presence of lay elements in
the administration of the community influenced its general orientation
toward social problems, and diminished to some extent the traditionalist
influence of the church on various matters, including the status of women.
The impact of the Orthodox Church on the Greek Literary Association
was to be quite limited as there were no churchmen among its members.
Remarkably, there is little documentation on churchmens opinions on
the status of women during the early 1860s. The Orthodox Churchs viewpoint became apparent only after the separation of the Bulgarian Exarchate from the Patriarchate and especially during the last years of the
nineteenth century.
From 1863 onward numerous members of the Greek Literary Association such as X. Zografos, Vegleris, Efthifron, M. Vlados, Dalloportas, and
the distinguished imperial medical doctor, Spyros Mavrogenis, published
articles in the Literary Associations journal referring to the role of women
in society as well as the duties that she was expected to fulfill. The titles of
their articles are indicative of their content: Womans mission in society,
Womans values, Similarities and differences between the sexes from
physical and psychological perspectives, On the anatomical and psychological differences in the male and female body, and their influence on the
lives and the actions of both sexes.23
Arguments regarding natural differences between the sexes form the
common denominator in all these writings. Woman differs from man not
only in external appearance, or anatomically, but also in psychology, and
it is because of these differences that she is destined for different social
duties. The deterministic character of this discourse is striking. Womens
roles in society do not stem from their own capacities and inclinations,
but rather from their female character, which is why these roles are inevitable. In other words, according to the Literary Association, which appears
to have largely expressed the opinion of the Greek Orthodox community,
public and private spheres were sharply separated, and the private sphere
was allotted to women and the public sphere was left for men.
23Kiriaki Mamoni and Lida Istikopoulou,

(Womens associations in Constantinople), (Athens: Hestia), 2122.
211
Source: Ethnika Philanthropika Katastimata en Konstantinoupoli. Imerologion etous 1907,

Constantinople, 1906.
Figure 6.3.Female workers in the ironing section established by the Ladies

Charitable Society of Pera.
The only way for women to penetrate the public sphere was through charitable activities. Charity was considered a Christian duty, but at the same
time an activity compatible with the character and virtues of women,
like sensitivity, kindness, self-sacrifice, and compassion. It is in this context that one should understand the significance of the founding of the
Ladies Charitable Society of Stavrodromi.24 The Society organized its
activities in five different sections: general assistance, sewing, laundry and
ironing, medical services, and nursing. This Society became the model for
several other womens associations which attempted to imitate its organization in work sections and more particularly in the sewing workshop
(figure 6.3).
Among these associations the Ladies Charitable Society of Chalkidon
(Philoptohos Adelfotis ton Kirion tis Halkidonos)25 was established in 1884;
24Mamoni and Istikopoulou, , 27109.
212
anastasia falierou
it aimed to provide medical aid to poor ill people, and material aid to the
poor, the old, and the disabled. From 1884 to 1887 about 171 persons146
Greeks, 10 Armenians, and 15 Turkswere granted medical aid from the
association. Following the example of the Ladies Charitable Society of
Stavrodromi, this Society too founded a workshop for sewing clothes,
basically blouses and underwear for the male employees.
The Ladies Charitable Society of Byk Dere The Charity (Philoptohos Adelfortis Kirion Megalou Revmatos I Philantropia)26 was another
association that founded a sewing atelier; it provided work to thirty-six
female workers in 1907. It seems that the Ladies Charitable Society of
Stavrodromi was closely connected with this new association. In fact, the
director of the latter helped organize the atelier of the Ladies Charitable Society of Byk Dere. Some years later, in 1913, a new association
called the Ladies Charitable Society of Beikta (Philoptohos Adelfotita
tou Diplokioniou)27 was founded. As in previous charity associations,
this society aimed to provide help to the poor and sick and offered work
to poor women. Within a year, the Society created a unit divided into
two sections: cutting and dressmaking. Similarly, the Orthodoxy, or the
Religious and Educational Society of those from Malakopi (Thriskeftiki
ke Ekpedeftiki Adelfotita Malakopiton I Orhtodoxia)28 founded in Constantinople in 1912, established a section of sewing and needlework in
the Malakopi in the girls school. Finally, founded in 1919, the Charitable
Society of the Ladies of Nevehir in Constantinople The Resurrection
(Philoptohos Adelfotita ton Kirion tis Neapoleos stin Konstantinoupoli
I Anastasis,29 aimed to create a sewing section for poor women and
girls of Nevehir in Cappadocia as soon as the Societys financial situation
would permit it. Unfortunately, the association failed to fulfill its aim.
Thus between 1861 and 1922, nearly 500 voluntary associations were
established in Constantinoples Greek community, and of these 60 were
formed by women.30 Clearly, in the period Eurydice (Evridiki) was published (from 1861 to 1870), a sort of ideological and cultural awakening was
taking place in the Greek Orthodox community, one that affected women
and their role in society.

28Istikopoulou, , 216.
213
Eurydice: Old Duties and New Roles

The periodicals purpose was the spiritual and intellectual renaissance of
Greek women in the Orient through Orthodox Hellenism. In its first issue
published on 21 November 1870, its objective was described as follows:
(Eurydice) is destined with all its heart and soul to analyze the principles
of the womans mission: to train the family, to focus on moral and physical
education, to observe the principles of good home economics and hygiene,
to follow developments in womans public education, research her history,
collect information on her customs and traditions and the lives and actions
of distinguished female personalities, to study ethical and scientific works
on women, and in general (...) to be profoundly connected to the truly
Greek families in a Hellenic way.31
Eurydice emphasized womens threefold destiny as spouses, mothers, and

housewives. As a spouse, the woman had to be her husbands assistant, as
a mother she had to raise her children properly, and as a housewife she
had to supervise the servants work, ensure cleanliness, reinforce her husbands trust in her, and be a good example for the children. These three
roles seem to have been inseparable. Yet despite their natural differences,
the two sexes were generally perceived as equal in worth, and in no case
did authors describe women as inferior.
A female writer argued in her article entitled Womans mission that
humanity was created in all its perfection when Eve was created by Gods
hand as Adams assistant.32 Through frequent references to biblical texts,
Eurydice attempted to deconstruct the old model of the ruler-subject relationship between the sexes and emphasized the idea of a complementary
relationship within the couple. The woman was regarded as important
as man in the process of world civilization; her mission was briefly
summarized in three words, namely, to love, to cure, and to comfort.
Thus, gender relations were interpreted through the prism of equality
in difference.
31Eurydice, 21 November 1870, 2.

32 Eurydice, 15 January 1872, 9.
214
anastasia falierou
Greek Women as Mothers of the Nation
The Orthodox Patriarchate33 was ideologically opposed to the nationalization of the Bulgarian church, since for several centuries it was the only
institution to guide almost all ethnicities of the Orthodox populations
except Armenians and Greek was the dominant language in both education and ecclesiastic liturgies. This secession of Bulgarians34 in 1870 considerably restricted the Patriarchates sphere of influence. In the light of
these threatening developments, the Greek elites realized the important
role that women, as mothers and schoolteachers, could play in the process
of nation building. As the Greek schools of the Ottoman Empire were frequented not only by Greeks but also by students of non-Greek origin, who
identified themselves as Greek on the basis on their Orthodox loyalty, it
was believed that women as schoolteachers could maintain the cultural
and religious homogeneity of the national body by actively integrating
these students into the community. As mothers, women could contribute
in an essential way to the national regeneration by raising ardent patriots to whom they disseminate national ideals. In this connection, writers
began to praise women as the carriers and transmitters of Greek traditional values and the Greek language, and their role as a motivating force
in the formation of ethnic identity was enhanced.
Therefore, of the three main roles ascribed to women, motherhood was
considered the most important; several articles in Eurydice refer to it as
the supreme duty. In an article entitled Woman as spouse, mother and
housewife the author claims that the mother has the main responsibility
for the childrens upbringing and education and that she could shape the
childs character: she is the only one who can turn the child away from
evil and push him to embrace the good, the only person who can transmit
virtues to the child.35
33On the issue of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, see the work of
Dimitris Stamatopoulos, .
19 [Reform and secularisation: Toward a restructure
of the history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the 19th Century] (Athens: Alexandria,
2003).
34The Bulgarians were not the only Orthodox inhabitants to react to the domination of
the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1833, the church of Greece became independent and some
years later the Serbs and the Romanians followed suit. On Bulgarian nationalism and more
particularly the Greek-Bulgarian rivalry in Macedonia see Giorgos Angelopoulos, Perceptions, Construction and Definition of Greek National Identity in late 19th-century Macedonia, Balkan Studies 36 (1995), 247263; Basil Gounaris, Social Cleavages and National
Awakening in Ottoman Macedonia, East European Quaterly 29 (1995), 409426.
35Eurydice, 24 March 1871, 230.
215
The discourse on women as active agents in national regeneration was

very much connected to the quest for female education. In Eurydices
columns the subject of female education dominated over all the other
topics and equal education was demanded for all women regardless
of their social class. The argument presented was the following: Greek
women needed a broad and meaningful education corresponding to the
female disposition so as to successfully undertake their mission of shaping
a new generation of Greeks with a strong sense of identity and a sacrificial spirit; they had to be aware of their national mission. Education was
thus considered a prerequisite for becoming a good mother. A mother
without knowledge is not a perfect mother and a wife without knowledge
is not a real wife36 argued the writer of an article published in Eurydice
on 18 August 1871.
Authors writing for this periodical considered womens moral and
intellectual education as the basis for the progress of society and by extension of the nation. In this connection, they argued that female education
must not be restricted to the art of cooking and washing but must provide
women with a wide general knowledge, which would help them to deepen
their thinking and better develop their personalities. Womens participation in social activities was legitimized only if it did not run contrary to
their family duties and female nature. Thus teaching, charity or medicine, for example, were considered compatible with the female altruistic
character, sensitivity, and capacities.37
The Ideal Housewife
Womens role as housewives was also greatly emphasized in Eurydice.
More precisely, it was argued that a woman who was not a good housewife
could not be a good mother and wife. According to the people writing for
Eurydice, a woman could not learn her duties toward her husband and the
proper rearing of her children on a casual basis, rather these matters must
be the subject of extensive and profound training. Thus, a scientific element gained importance and a considerable number of articles dedicated
to home economics argued that women should receive the appropriate
instruction and experience of the science of home economics.38
36Eurydice, 18 August 1871, 185.

37Eurydice, 1 January 1871, 7879.
38Eurydice, 5 December 1870, 29.
216
anastasia falierou
In addition, several of the periodicals articles referred in detail to the

qualities that a woman must have in order to manage her house properly: tidiness, punctuality, good organization, simplicity, thrift, and gaiety.
Tidiness39 was regarded as an indispensable virtue for the prosperity of the
household, as it facilitated the provision of household services. Moreover,
a tidy house inspired feelings of respect and admiration for the lady of
the house. Tidiness was closely connected with the virtue of punctuality,40
which in a true Victorian spirit supposedly doubled the value of time. The
successful management of a household depended on the way a housewife managed to handle several tiny details. For example, meals must be
served at a precise hour, while every household must establish specific
hours for the reception of guests.
Of equal importance according to the editors of Eurydice, was a cheerful spirit and a sense of humor. This quality was necessary and useful to
every housewife who had to give orders to her servants and overcome
a number of difficulties in her daily life. A sense of humor ensured the
fruitful communication between the lady and her servants, rendering the
latter more active and loyal. Thus a sense of humor was the best means
for preserving the order and peace in a family and the happiness of its
members. An ideal housewife should also be adorned with the virtues
of simplicity, dignity, and thrift, respecting her husbands hard work and
never spending all of his earnings.
Overall, the periodical presents the model of the ideal woman, a term
referring both to good mothers and well-trained housewives. Furthermore, the happiness of the household appears as an exclusively female
domain, linked with the prosperity of the nation. By successfully accomplishing their domestic duties, women could contribute to the welfare of
the nation.
The Frivolous Woman: A Threat for the Household?
Womens roles as mothers and housewives are directly connected with
the question of conspicuous consumption.41 Female frivolity is a theme
39Eurydice, 10 June 1871, 8990.
40Eurydice, 15 June 1871, 96.
41For a general overview on the novel consumption practices in the Greek Orthodox
community see Haris Exertzoglou, The Cultural Uses of Consumption: Negotiating Class,
Gender, and Nation in the Ottoman Urban Centers During the 19th Century, Journal of
Middle East Studies 35 (2003), 77101.
217
that often preoccupied the writers of our periodical. Sappho Leontias suggested that a woman who loves her house and family must avoid all ostentation. By allowing luxurious and superfluous items to enter her house,
she in fact brings to her shelter a wretched evil. Thus, the author does not
hesitate to criticize women who spend large amounts of money on fancy
clothes, jewelry, new furniture, and expensive food.
Coquetry was depicted in Eurydice as a female defect. Fashion was
perceived as a Western trait alienating women from their threefold goal,
contradicting Hellenic traditions and culture. This corrupting illness is
not ours. Europe has given it to us.42 Leontias argued that this consumption of material goods nurtured female vanity and could lead to moral
degeneration.
Beauty can be, for women, the cause of several misfortunes, if it is not accompanied by wisdom.... Beauty can be disastrous if a woman only regards her
bodys qualities and ignores completely her intellectual education and the
acquisition of virtues (...) the nation can quickly disintegrate if it is overcome by luxury and corruption and if women stop being the households
steering-wheel and examples of self-restraint and wisdom.43
Several articles refer to the negative effects of consumerism on household

finances, ultimately leading to the husbands moral enfeeblement due to
their wives superficial demands. The story of frivolous Magdalene is typical of its kind. Such was Magdalenes desire for a luxurious way of life and
material goods that she spent both her familys and her husbands fortune.
Unable to pay his debts and satisfy Magdalenes endless demands, her
husband attempted robbery and ended up in prison.44
42 Eurydice, 9 January 1871, 91.

43Eurydice, 10 July 1871, 141.
44Magdalene appears as a frivolous and vain girl attracted by the luxurious life. Given
her familys great fortune she imagined herself to be a baroness or princess and never
showed any compassion or sympathy for those in misery. Moreover, Magdalene lacked an
ethical vision, valuing physical appearance more than character and morality. Magdalene
married a young man whose fortune amounted to 500 liras, while she owned 2,000 liras.
Three months after their marriage, the husband realized that only 300 liras of the initial
amount was left. Most of the money had been spent on fancy clothing, the theater and
other forms of entertainment, and to pay his debts. Magdalenes husband was unable to
satisfy his wifes endless demands for silk toilettes and first quality hats. Nothing could
restrain Magdalenes desire for luxury! When one day her husband wanted to count his last
savings, Magdalene told him that she had spent everything to rent a summer residence.
Desperately, the poor husband started gambling. First he was doing quite well, managing
to satisfy Magdalenes wishes; however, one night he lost everything. In order to satisfy her
demands and also pay his debts, he attempted to rob a store but was arrested by the police
218
anastasia falierou
Eurydice urged its readers not to be seduced by luxurious consumerism

in the following terms:
Oh Woman, if you want not only to be called, but also to be these things,
always remember the importance of your threefold destiny and do your best
to fulfill this destiny as it deserves...Avoid for the sake of humanity in general, and for the sake of your exalted status and dignity more particularly,
whatever can dominate your existence and destroy your future and be an
obstacle to societys progress. Accomplish your duties as sister, woman, wife,
and mother...45
Contrary to the model of the frivolous woman Eurydice juxtaposes the

angel at home. The latter phrase describes the portrait of a decent, modest, indulgent, affable, liberal, kind, and wise woman, not lacking critical judgment. It is argued that indulgence is the most difficult virtue to
acquire. Liberality means to show ones true character without needing to hide ones actions and therefore, it must not be confused with a
carefree air. In other words, liberality does not imply speaking without
measure and saying whatever comes to our mind. Above all, a woman
must be modest. This charm (modesty) cannot be obtained through any
imitation, but it is born through true and gentle feelings.46 Modesty was
emphasized for two reasons: first, because it is the mirror of pure sentiments and the reflection of healthy moral principles that a woman was
taught by her parents, and second, because it protects women against
mens importunities. A woman having a pure face, decent manners, and
innocent spirit, forces a man to respect and honor her and to be ashamed
for the corruption of his soul.47
Work, too, was of great moral significance. Eurydice was greatly preoccupied with the status of poor girls in society, arguing that like luxury,
poverty could corrupt women. The fear that poverty could lead women
into prostitution was dominant in the Greek press of the period. Girls who
became victims of prostitution were considered a shame for the community and Hellenism in general. As Beth Baron shows in another context, in
the Greek case, too, womens honor and dignity were identified with that
and ended up in prison. As for the vain Magdalene, she lost her social position without
ever stopping her desire for luxury. Eurydice, 15 June 1871, 102.
45Eurydice, 24 March 1871, 232233.
219
of the nation.48 A popular topic of the periodicals serialized novels were

orphan girls living in poverty. Such was Agnos case, who after her fathers
death, was left unprotected and unable to resist disgrace.49
In this connection, the authors once more emphasized the role of education. Education, especially that of girls from the lower strata, was of
crucial importance because it could protect women from poverty and
immorality. Proficiency in crafts, such as sewing or needlework, could
guarantee them a daily income. The periodical is full of stories about widows or poor orphans who managed to survive poverty and moral danger
thanks to their work how many widows and orphans did not recreate
their families through their work?50
The importance of education for the national cause promoted by
Eurydice was echoed in the founding of the Association for Female Education in Constantinople (Syllogos Iper tis Gynaikeias Ekpaidefseos) in 1875,
which aimed to improve the quality of primary and secondary education.
One of its first actions was the establishment of a girls school in the same
year thanks to Constantinos Zappas generous donation. The new school
was named after him, Zappeion.
The schools purpose, as noted in the first article of its charter, was
(...) the national indoctrination, the moral and scientific education of
girls in the Orient, (and) the diffusion of primary and secondary education
among them so that they may fulfill their destinies in both the household and in society.51 In other words, the Zappeion intended to create
enlightened wives, mothers, and teachers who would transmit to children
national ideas and a Hellenic Christian education.
Although Eurydice presented itself as a womens review, it was far from
being a feminist publication. Scrutinizing the periodicals pages the reader
does not come across the word emancipation at all, though the term
had started appearing in some Greek texts by this time.52 The question
of emancipation was extensively debated in the columns of another
womans periodical, named Bosphoris, published between 1899 and 1907
48Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender and Politics (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2005).
49Eurydice, 30 May 1871, 7375.
51Canner, , 312.
52 Angelika Psarra, :
(18701920) [Mother or citizen? Greek versions of womens emancipation (18701920)],
in To filo ton dikaiomaton. Eksousia, Gynaikes kai Idiotita tou Politi, ed. Diotima Centre for
Womens Studies and Research (Athens: Nefeli Publications, 1999), 9092.
220
anastasia falierou
in Constantinople by Cornilia Preveziotou. Bosphoris significance mainly

lay in the ideological debate between the opponents of emancipation
represented basically by a group of male writers and the periodicals publisher Cornilia Preveziotouand a single defender, namely the poet and
writer Virginia Evangellidou.
Compared to a forbidden fruit, an irritating chimera and a sickness
threatening to corrupt female morality, emancipation acquires, in the
columns in Bosphoris, purely negative connotations. Relying mainly on
the argument of womans biological functions, the opponents of emancipation argue that female activities must be restricted to the domestic
domain. Home is perceived as a womans kingdom, a space that belongs
to her by right, inside which woman plays her role as a mother, a wife, and
a housewife. Furthermore, emancipation supposedly moves women away
from their real destination, which is maternity. Contrary to the above
statements, Virginia Evangellidou considers woman to be equal to man
in all spheres of life. According to her opinion, women must have the
same rights as men; she must be an active citizen and mans companion
in life. Woman represents the other half of humanity and therefore, she
must never be subordinate to man.
Despite the fact that Eurydice was not as long lasting as Bosphoris,
examining the journal permits us to understand how the debates on
women were connected with the process of identity construction and
nation-building in the Greek Orthodox community and the Ottoman
Empire. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Greek
authors stressed womens roles as enlightened mothers. More precisely,
the moral and civilizing qualities of womens nature, in turn defined by
motherhood, appeared as capable of rehabilitating society, and by extension, the nation. Thus, motherhood became a patriotic duty, dictated by
the nations new imperatives and practical needs.53 Womans duty was
not only to give birth but also to properly bring up the generations to
come by bestowing on them the life-giving force of Hellenism.54 In that
connection, children became a national asset and women the makers and
preservers of cultural coherence.
The periodical proposed, in fact, the redefinition of the public and private spheres. In the case of Ottoman Greeks, the household gained a spe53Efi Avdela and Angelika Psarra, Engendering Greekness: Womens Emancipation
and Irredentist Politics in Nineteenth-century Greece, Mediterranean Historical Review
20 (2005), 6779.
54Efi Avdela and Angelika Psarra, Engendering Greekness, 74.
221
cial importance because it became a metaphor for the nation at large.55 In

other words, the household was conceptualized as a space where national
affairs were sorted out. Within this space, the mother figure dominated;
women were legitimated as active warriors fighting for the nations cultural coherence.
In conclusion, it is clear that under the influence of nationalistic rhetoric female roles were re-defined and given new meaning. Again and again
writers emphasized the importance of womens roles for the welfare of
the nation. The discourse on woman and her national duty finally resulted
in elite acceptance of the need for a broader female education compatible with her mission, thus opening the way for womens further expansion into the public sphere. The establishment of an extended network of
girls schools in the Ottoman Empire shows that the ideal of a HellenicChristian education from 1870 onward became one of the main preoccupations of the Greek Orthodox community. More precisely, the school
curricula reveal that the education provided in the girls schools was to
serve the national interest which aimed to prepare enlightened mothers
and scientific housewives.
55Omnia Shakry, Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in the Turn of
the Century Egypt, in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed.
Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Cairo: American University in
Cairo Press, 1998), 126170.
222
anastasia falierou
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Chapter Ten
An Almanac for Ottoman Women:

Notes on Ebzziya Tevfiks Takvmn-nis (1317/1899)
zgr Tresay
The history of almanacs in the Ottoman Empire has not been written
yet. The official yearbooks, both the general ones and others concerning
a specific province (vilyet) or the almanacs of official institutions and
organizations have all been used extensively as valuable historical sources
for political and institutional history. One can hardly say the same for
sociocultural history, since the Ottoman almanacs published by private
individuals for civil concerns have not attracted the attention of historians. Although private almanacs have played a leading role in Ottoman
society in the propagation and popularization of certain aspects of European culture, very few relevant studies exist.1
In the European context, almanacs, which were for centuries the only
non-religious books in wide circulation, included such things as a calendars, anecdotes, curious stories, popular articles, biographies, useful information on nature (flora and fauna), dates of fairs, advice on agriculture
and medicine, weather predictions, astronomical data, maxims, proverbs,
and prophecies. Thus the almanacs contributed to the popularization of
new techniques and knowledge among the general public.2 The covers of
Hachette almanacs, which began to appear in the late nineteenth century,
1 The bibliographical catalogue of Hasan Duman on almanacs is not complete since it

includes only the almanacs called slnme or nevsl, thus excluding most private almanacs, which are generally called takvm: Hasan Duman, Osmanl Slnmeleri ve Nevslleri,
2 vols (Ankara: Enformasyon ve Dokmantasyon Hizmetleri Vakf, 2000). Four different
words are used interchangeably in Ottoman Turkish to describe almanacs: Slnme and
nevsl, words of Persian origin; takvm, a term of Arab origin; and almanak, a word of Greek
origin, which was borrowed from French by the Ottomans in the late nineteenth century.
For more substantial information, see the articles Slname and Takvm in Mehmet Zeki
Pakaln, Osmanl Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Szl 3 (Istanbul: MEB, 1993): 105106 and
387388; and especially, Server R. skit, Trkiyede Neriyat Hareketleri Tarihine Bir Bak
(Ankara: MEB, 2000 [1939]), 232239, which gives the best but still incomplete list of almanacs published in Ottoman Turkish.
2Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink, La littrature des almanachs: rflexions sur lanthropologie
du fait littraire, tudes franaises 36, no. 3 (2000), 4764.
226
zgr tresay
featured a slogan that expressed the popularizing nature of this kind of

publication, Petite encyclopdie populaire de la vie pratique [Small popular encyclopedia of practical life]. For this reason, from the seventeenth
to nineteenth centuries almanacs were the books of the popular classes
in Europe.3
Things were quite different in the Ottoman context. Although Ottoman
publishers of almanacs were well acquainted with the European, especially French, almanacs of the late nineteenth century, they used this kind
of publication for different purposes. Because of the low rate of literacy,
the Ottoman almanacs targeted an elite readership. For this, Ottoman
almanacs did not contain agricultural or medical information, maxims
or proverbs. The composite nature of the almanac was well-suited to the
encyclopedist vocation of the empires intellectuals and thus the Ottoman
almanac was a concise encyclopedia compiled by the editor himself. The
typical almanac included, besides calendars and chronologies, a variety of
texts about diverse aspects of European cities and ways of life.
The particular usefulness of almanacs in promoting the new conceptions of time should also be noted. Unlike the European almanacs, the
Ottoman publications always contained a variety of calendars reflecting
the traditional temporal plurality in which Ottoman communities lived, as
well as various and very detailed historical chronologies, Biblical, Islamic,
Ottoman and so on. Thus, almanacs as a genre were particularly appropriate to express this sense of temporal plurality, an essential feature of
Ottoman society.
The first private almanac in Ottoman Turkish, Slnme-i Hadka
was published in 1873 by Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913), the publisher of
Takvmn-nis, on which this paper focuses. Ebzziya, who was certainly
one of the most prominent figures of Ottoman printing history, played a
pioneering role in almanac publishing in the 1880s with his series Takvm-i
Ebzziya. In the 1890s the commercial success of this series seems to have
stimulated other editors to prepare and publish almanacs as well. Given
the lack of any reliable catalogue on this subject, it can be estimated
that some hundred private almanacs were published in Ottoman Turkish
between 1880 and 1914.
3For a recent overview on the genre, see Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink et al. (eds.) Les lectures
du peuple en Europe et dans les Amriques (XVIIeXXe sicles) (Brussels: ditions Complexe,
2003).
an almanac for ottoman women
227
Apart from Ebzziyas collection, the most remarkable ones were

Takvm-i Bahar by Ahmed Edip and Ahmed Mcid, Takvm-i Cedd by Salih
Zeki and mile Lavoine, Musavver ve Mkemmel Yeni Osmanl Takvmi by
Avanzde Mehmed Sleyman, Takvm-i Marifet by Ahmed Refik, Nevsl-i
Asr by Hseyin Vassf and Krikor Faik, Musavver Nevsl-i Servet-i fnn
by Ahmed hsn, Takvm-i Dersaadet by Mehmed zzet, Nevsl-i Ragb
by Mahmud Rgb, Nevsl-i Osmn by M. Baheddin, Yeni Takvm by
Mehmed hsn, and Nevsl-i Malmt by Baba Tahir, all published in
the 1890s. The period after 1908 saw the publication of Musavver Nevsli Osmn by Ekrem Read and Osman Ferid, Musavver Slnme-i Serveti fnn by Ahmed hsn, Yeni takvm by Mehmed hsn, and Muhtral
Takvm-i Sadet by the Necati Memduh brothers and Karagz Slnmesi.
Only two almanacs specifically addressing women were published during this golden age of Ottoman almanac publishing. The first one, the predecessor of Takvmn-Nis, was Nevsl-i Nisvn,4 published in 1897 by one
of the most prolific Ottoman writers and editors, Avanzde Mehmed Sleyman (18711922).5 This almanac was connected closely to the nascent
Ottoman womens movement and the relevant womens press.
In this paper I present a close reading of the second womens almanac
that appeared in Ottoman Turkish, namely Takvmn-nis6 [Womens
almanac], published in 1899 by Ebzziya. The term womens almanac
in Ottoman Turkish is more appropriate than Ottoman womens almanac since Ottoman almanacs published in other languages of the Empire
have not yet been brought to light.7 The very significance of this almanac
should be assessed in two distinct but interconnected historical contexts,
namely that of Ottoman printing and Ottoman womens history. In what
follows, first, I describe the flourishing activity of almanac publishing in
4Nevsl-i Nisvn (Istanbul: Yuvanaki Panayotidis Matbaas, 1315/1897), 80 pages. On this
almanac, see Cneyd Okay, lk Kadn Yll Nevsl-i Nisvan, Toplumsal Tarih 23 (November 1995), 6364.
5For his biography, see Mehmet Sleyman (Avanzade), in Tanzimattan Bugne
Edebiyatlar Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2 (Istanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar, 2003), 668669; and Halil
Bingl, Kitabiyyat Vadisinde Unutulan Bir Halk Yazarmz: Ecz. Bnb. Avanzade Mehmed
Sleyman, Tarih ve Toplum 100 (April 1992), 6063 (with a bibliography of Avanzade). It
is interesting to note that one of the earlier works of Avanzade was a book on women
writers: Mehmet Sleyman Avanzade, Muharrir kadnlar (Istanbul: Kasbar Matbaas, 1892),
160 pages.
6Takvmn-Nis (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1317), 328 pages. For a brief presentation of this almanac, see N. Ayla Demirolu, Bir Kadn Takvimi: Takvimn-Nis,
Tarih ve Toplum 106 (October 1992), 6264.
7The only exception is Engin Berber, Osmanl Kentini Tanmada Kaynak Olarak
Yunanca Takvim ve Rehberler, Kebike 17 (2004), 4172.
228
zgr tresay
the late nineteenth century. Second, I place Takvmn-nis in the general

framework of Ottoman womens history in the late 1890s and the relevant
press targeting a female audience.
Ottoman Printing and the Womens Question
in the Late Nineteenth Century
Although the printing press was imported to the Ottoman Empire in the
late fifteenth century by the Sephardic Jews, for several reasons, mainly
economic, but also political and social, its impact on Ottoman society was
felt only in the second half of the nineteenth century.8 While there was a
constant rise in the number of books printed in the Empire after 1820, the
main impetus behind the development of printing was the emergence of
private journalism in the 1860s. From that time until the 1880s, the art of
printing served the publication of newspapers and other periodicals. Very
few books were published. In Ottoman society, unlike Europe,9 journalistic culture thus preceded book culture.10
This state of affairs began to change in the late 1870s. Because of the
gradual harshening of Hamidian censorship, political journalism became
increasingly difficult, and then impossible. The book progressively replaced
the newspaper during the 1880s. However, it would be erroneous to attribute this change exclusively to the negative effects of censorship. After
all, the spread of education which was inaugurated in the reform period
generally known as Tanzmt, produced its first fruits in the Hamidian
era (18761909). A relatively large readership arose in the last quarter of
the century, from among the graduates of the modern public and private
schools, providing the necessary conditions for a book trade.11 The flourishing of almanac publishing was part of this general expansion.
8See Orlin Sabev, brahim Mteferrika ya da lk Osmanl Matbaa Serveni (17261746)
(Istanbul: Yeditepe, 2006); Franz Babinger, Mteferrika ve Osmanl Matbaas. 18. Yzylda
stanbulda Kitabiyat, trans. Nedret Kuran-Burolu (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt Yaynlar,
2004); and Alpay Kabacal, Trk Kitap Tarihi. I. Balangcndan Tanzimata Kadar (Istanbul:
Cem Yaynevi, 1989).
9See the classic study of Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, Lapparition du livre
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1999 [1958]); and Henri-Jean Martin, Histoire et pouvoirs de lcrit
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1996 [1988]).
10Orhan Kololu, La formation des intellectuels la culture journalistique dans
lEmpire ottoman et linfluence de la presse trangre, in Presse turque et presse de
Turquie, ed. Nathalie Clayer, et al. (Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1992), 124141.
11 For Ottoman book printing, see Johann Strausss overviews: Les livres et limprimerie
Istanbul (18001908), in Turquie livres dhier, livres daujourdhui, ed. Paul Dumont
229
The Hamidian era witnessed some socioeconomic transformations that

expanded the sphere of women beyond the house. New forms of social
interaction arose, at least in the imperial capital and port cities. The popularity of cinemas, theaters, cafes, restaurants, public gardens, and public
transportation challenged the traditional segregation of genders in the
public sphere. The question of the co-existence of men and women in
the public sphere brought up the womens question as an immediate and
omnipresent social issue.
Considerable progress was made in the field of womens education
during this era. Historians rightly describe Sultan Abdlhamid II as the
school-founder sultan. Many elementary, secondary, and industrial arts
schools for girls were opened by Abdlhamid. In the context of womens
literacy and education, the sultan has recently been described as the prototype of the patriarchal feminist.12 What is more, the first generation of
graduates of Drlmuallimt, the Teachers Training College for Women
founded in 1870, began to teach in the Hamidian era. The recruitment
of women teachers can also be read as the first serious step challenging
the traditional labor division between the genders in the urban Muslim
middle classes.13
Seen from a broader perspective, it may be stated that at the end of
the nineteenth century, the womens question was at the very center of
almost all Muslim intellectuals reform agendas, partly as a response to
the colonial discourse on the situation of women in Muslim societies.14 In
fact, the womens question became an issue of central importance to the
definition of a new society. One of the most influential Egyptian reformist intellectuals, Qsim Amn, published two books in 1899 and 1901 on
the emancipation of women, namely Tahrr al-mara [The emancipation
of women] and al-Mara al-jadda [The new woman], which launched
(Strasbourg and Istanbul: ISIS, 1992), 524; and Ktp ve Resail-i Mevkute: Printing and
Publishing in a Multi-ethnic Society, in Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy, ed.
Elisabeth zdalga (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 225253.
12Elizabeth Brown Frierson, Unimagined Communities: State, Press, and Gender in
the Hamidian Era, PhD dissertation (Princeton University, 1996), 90.
13Seluk Akin Somel, Osmanl Modernleme Dneminde Kz Eitimi, Kebike 10
(2000), 223238.
14Elisabeth Thompson, Public and Private in Middle Eastern Womens History, Journal of Womens History 15, no. 1 (Spring 2003), 5860. Two important booklets on the womens question which were published in Ottoman Turkish, namely Kadnlar by emseddin
Sami (1879) and Nisvn- slm by Fatma Aliye (1891), were written as a response to the
Western critics of womens conditions in Muslim countries.
230
zgr tresay
heated debate.15 The Crimean Muslim reformist smail Gaspral was

another intellectual who was attentive to the question of womens progress in Muslim countries. Aside from many articles on various aspects of
the womens question published in his influential newspaper Tercmn,
in 1903 he wrote a booklet entitled Kadnlar [The women].16
A commercial press that produced for a female audience in Ottoman
Turkish emerged in the late 1860s.17 The first periodical of this kind,
Terakki-i Muhaddert [Womens progress] appeared in 1869, consisting of
some 48 issues.18 In 1891, one of the first modern Ottoman women writers,
Fatma Aliye, published a book on the womens question in Islam, Nisvn-
slm [The women of Islam], which was then translated into French, English, and Arabic.19 Fatma Aliye wrote on diverse aspects of the issue and
in 1898 also took part in a public debate with an eminent contemporary
intellectual, Mahmud Esad, on polygamy.20 In 1895, the most long-lived
Ottoman womens periodical appeared: Hanmlara Mahss Gazete [The
ladies own gazette]. This influential womens periodical consisted of 604
issues in total and appeared for fourteen years between 1895 and 1909.21
With hundreds of female authors, Hanmlara Mahss Gazete was an avenue for women who wished to participate in the public debates regarding womens issues. The same publishing house also printed a number of
15Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 17981939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 164170; and Juan Ricardo Cole, Feminism, Class, and Islam in Turnof-the-Century Egypt, International Journal of Middle East Studies 13 (1981), 393401. The
first book of Amin was translated into Ottoman Turkish in 1913, under the title Hrriyet-i
Nisvn.
16smail Gaspral, Kadnlar (Bahesaray: Tercman Gazetesinin Ta ve Hurufat Basmahanesi, 1903), 18 pages. This booklet is reprinted in smail Gaspral. Seilmi Eserleri:
II. Fikr Eserleri (Istanbul: tken Yaynlar, 2004), 287305. For Gasprals ideas concerning the womens question, see Edward James Lazzerini, Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and
Muslim Modernism in Russia, 18781914, PhD dissertation (University of Washington,
1973), 237260. His daughter, efika Gaspral, was also a prominent female figure in the
Muslim womens movement in the Russian Empire. See engl Hablemitolu and Necip
Hablemitolu, efika Gaspral ve Rusyada Trk Kadn Hereketi (18931920) (Ankara: AjansTrk Matbaaclk, 1998).
17The non-Muslim Ottoman womens press preceded the Muslim one. The first Ottoman-Greek (rum) womens periodical [Hive] appeared in 1842, and the second one
[Pandora] in 1861. See Anastasia Falierous study in this volume.
18See Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi (Istanbul: Metis Yaynlar, 1996), 2227.
19For the translation of Nisvn- slm into modern Turkish, see Mbeccel Kzltan,
Fatma Aliye Hanm. Yaam, Sanat, Yaptlar ve Nisvan- slam (Istanbul: Mutlu Yaynlar,
1993), 63148.
20See Firdevs Canbaz (ed.), ok Elilik. Taaddd-i Zevcat (Ankara: Hece Yaynlar,
2007).
21 Serpil akr, Osmanl Kadn Hareketi, 2732.
231
monographs by women and men on subjects of gender rights and obligations, and family structure.22 The first womens almanac mentioned
above, Nevsl-i Nisvn, was also published there.
This first almanac comprises, aside from common calendar information, some articles on hygiene, household management, and cosmetics,
essentially the writings of the women writers of the Hanmlara Mahss
Gazete. An anonymous article entitled Ottoman womens progress deals,
in a tone of praise, with womens progress in the Hamidian era. The following passage expresses what womens progress really means, at least in
the minds of that almanacs publishers:
Undoubtedly, a countrys progress requires womens education and training
to an equal degree [to that of men]. A people is constituted by families. If
only one part of the family, namely the man, is educated and the woman
not, that family and, subsequently, society cannot really progress. The progress of all parts is required. Learned men state that a peoples progress can
be measured by its womens degree of education. They are certainly not
wrong. A well-educated woman raises well-educated children. Only these
children can contribute to their peoples progress and wealth [...] Women
are humanitys mothers, on the education of which the future wealth of a
people depends.23
As shown below, this vision of womens social role as mothers is akin

to Ebzziyas views expressed in Takvmn-Nis. The formative role of
mothers is emphasized in another article on the biography of a Muslim
woman from early Islamic times.24 An article signed by Fatma Fahrnnisa
describes an exhibition of paintings made by students of the women teachers training college. Emine Semiyes article, Spiritual beauty explains
that there are more important qualities in women than their physical
beauty. There are also four poems on womanhood and motherhood by
Nigr bint-i Osman (alias air Nigr), Hamiyet Zehra, Makbule Leman,
and Zeynep Cemal. A poem called Womanhood by Makbule Leman, the
first Ottoman woman poet whose works were published in the press, was
her most famous.25 The piece below expresses well the moralistic spirit of
the whole poem:
22Elizabeth B. Frierson, Unimagined Communities: Women and Education in the
Late-Ottoman Empire 18761909, Critical Matrix: Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and
Culture 9, no. 2 (1995), 71.
23Osmnl kadnlarnda terakkiyt, in Nevsl-i nisvn, 3334.
24Bir slm kadnndaki zek, in Nevsl-i nisvn, 3540.
25Yaprak Zihniolu, Kadnsz nklap. Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadnlar Halk Frkas, Kadn
Birlii (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2003), 43.
232
zgr tresay
The more virtuous we are, the better
Above all, we should be bashful
Whose evidence is the covering of the face
Felicity is in the veiling.26
Nevsl-i Nisvn was not merely the first almanac in Ottoman Turkish
addressing a female audience, but also the first and only almanac deserving the name womens almanac since it included essentially women writers writings on aspects of the womens question in the Ottoman context.
The rest of the article focuses on Takvmn-Nis, a much more voluminous almanac than the previous one.
Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913) and Takvmn-Nis (1899)
In order to understand the significance of Takvmn-Nis, it is necessary to delve more deeply into the biography of its editor and publisher.
Ebzziya was born in Istanbul in 1849. After spending some years in the
bureaucracy following his late fathers career, in the 1860s he joined the
nascent press circle of the imperial capital, within which he received his
real education. As a novice in journalism, he became close friends with
writers such as brahim inasi, Namk Kemal, and Ziya Paa, and became
involved in the Young Ottomans movement.
inasi was the author of the first Ottoman satirical play, air Evlenmesi
[The poets wedding] published in 1859, which criticized the tradition of
arranged marriages; and Namk Kemal was the first Ottoman intellectual
to publish an article in the press on the question of womens education
as early as 1867. Furthermore, in 1879 another close friend of Ebzziya,
the lexicographer emseddin Sami, published the first treatise on the
womens question in Ottoman Turkish; this was reedited in 1895.27 The
womens question was indeed central to the agenda of reformist Ottoman intellectuals, including Ebzziya.
26Makbule Lemn, Kadnlk, in Nevsl-i nisvn, 4950: Ne rtbe fahr edersek biz
revdr / Ki en lzm olan bizde haydr / Buna brhn ise yzde riddr / Tesettrle
selmet rendr.
27emseddin Sami, Kadnlar, 96 pages. For a discussion of Kemals and Samis writings
on the womens question, see Frierson, Unimagined Communities, 107112; rfan Karako, emseddin Sami ve Kadn, Tarih ve Toplum 183 (March 1999), 6165; and Bir Elde
ne Bir Elde Kitap. emseddin Sami ve Osmanl Kadnlar (Istanbul: Kitap Yaynevi, 2008),
which also contains a transliteration of the booklet Kadnlar to the Latin alphabet.
233
From 1865 to 1913, Ebzziya published some seven hundred articles on

various subjects.28 Moreover, from the 1870s to the 1910s, he published five
political newspapers (bret, Hadka, Sirc, Le Courrier dOrient, and Yeni
Tasvr-i Efkr) and three literary periodicals (Czdan, Muharrir, and the
long-lived Mecmua-i Ebzziya). His journalistic and political activities cost
him some eleven years in exile, the first time in Rhodes, between 1873 and
1876, and the second in Konya, between 1900 and 1908.29
A polyvalent Ottoman intellectual, he was a renowned calligrapher, an
amateur painter, and a very talented cabinetmaker. A prolific and polygraphic writer, he published one of the first original plays in Ottoman
Turkish,30 a grammatical study on the indefinite determiner neithernor in Ottoman Turkish,31 a study on the poet Nef,32 a book on Jewish
history,33 as well as two volumes of an unfinished Ottoman dictionary.34
He also published the first modern anthology of Ottoman literature, which
subsequently was used as a textbook in the Institut National des Langues
et Civilisations Orientales in Paris as well as in secondary schools in the
Ottoman Empire and then in the Turkish Republic until the alphabet
reform inaugurated by Mustafa Kemal in 1928.35
28Ebzziya took part later in 191112 in a fierce controversy about feminism with a
feminist writer, Cevad Sami. From a conservative perspective, he defended the necessity
of veiling for Muslim women. See zgr Tresay, Mecmua-i Ebzziyada Tesettr Meselesi
ve Feminizm Tartmalar, Toplumsal Tarih 87 (March 2001), 1623.
29There is a large body of literature on Ebzziya. See lim Gr, Ebzziya Tevfik: Hayat;
Dil, Edebiyat, Basn, Yayn ve Matbaacla Katklar (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl, 1998); and
zgr Tresay, tre intellectuel la fin de lEmpire ottoman: Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913)
et son temps, PhD dissertation (Paris, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, 2008).
30Ebzziya, Ecel-i kaz (Istanbul: 1288/1872), 108 pages. The play, which is a romantic
tragedy about the tradition of the vendetta, was deeply influenced by Shakespeares Romeo
and Juliet. See nci Enginn, Tanzimat Devrinde Shakespeare Tercmeleri ve Tesiri (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakltesi Basmevi, 1979), 115118.
31 Ebzziya, Ne edt- nefyi hakknda tetebbt (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya,
1309/18911892), 84 pages.
32Ebzziya Tevfik, Nef (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1305/18871888), 303+4
pages.
33Ebzziya Tevfik, Millet-i sriliye (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1305/1888),
78 pages. On this book, see zgr Tresay, Osmanl mparatorluunda antisemitizmin
Avrupal kkenleri zerine birka not: Ebzziya Tevfik ve Millet-i sriliye (1888), Tarih ve
Toplum Yeni Yaklamlar 6 (Autumn 2007Spring 2008), 97115.
34Lgat-i Ebzziya (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 13061308/18891891), 600 and
752 pages.
35Ebzziya Tevfik, Numne-i Edebiyt- Osmniye (Istanbul: Mihran Matbaas,
1296/1879), 512+7 pages.
234
zgr tresay
Ebzziya was also the most important Ottoman publisher of the late
nineteenth century.36 With his second printing house, founded in 1882,
he realized a revolution in the art of printing in the Ottoman Empire.
Matbaa-i Ebzziya thus became the leader in Ottoman printing in the last
two decades of the nineteenth century. Some of the products of Matbaa-i
Ebzziya received awards in European competitions. Besides impression
quality, Ebzziya and his printing house deeply influenced Ottoman publishing. First, Ebzziyas collection of paperbacks, Kitphne-i Ebzziya,
consisting of some 110 titles published in the 1880s, seems to have contributed much to increasing the potential readership.37 Second, his almanac
collection played a pioneering role in the Ottoman Turkish book market.38
His almanacs are indeed the most beautiful specimens of Ottoman printing. Ebzziyas womens almanac Takvmn-nis, which is the subject
of this study, was the last almanac of this collection, the publication of
which was interrupted by his exile to Konya in 1900.
Eclectic Content and Plural Temporalities
Takvmn-Nis was made up of 328 pages and published in a small format: 6.5 cm to 13.5 cm. This was the same size as its immediate predecessors, i.e., the last two of Ebzziyas almanacs which appeared in 1898
and in 1899. He decided to publish paperback almanacs, starting with the
first two and continuing with Takvmn-nis. Ebzziyas almanacs before
these had generally been of larger size. Only these last three were published in this very small format.
Takvmn-Nis is composed of two general parts. The first, which could
be called the calendar, is divided into twelve parts, organized according
to the months of the year. This part, which was comprised of 200 pages,
36See zgr Tresay, Bir Osmanl Matbaacsnn Sergzeti: Ebzziya Tevfikin Matbaa-i Ebzziyas, Toplumsal Tarih 128 (August 2004), 3643 and II. Abdlhamid Dnemi
Yaymcl, Matbaa-i Ebzziya ve Bast Kitaplar, Mteferrika 34 (Automn 2008), 348.
37On this collection see Ziyad Ebzziya, Kitaphane-i EbzziyaKitaphane-i Meahir,
in Trk Dili ve Edebiyat Ansiklopedisi V (Istanbul: Dergh Yaynlar, 1982), 370372; and
lim Gr, Kitphne-i Ebzziya, in Ziyad Ebzziya Kitab: Darada Bir elebi, ed. mer
Faruk erifolu, (Istanbul: Tima, 1998), 191204.
38On Ebzziyas almanacs, see lim Gr, Ebzziya Tevfik: 282292 and 361362; mit
Bayazolu, Ebzziya Takvimi, Sanat Dnyamz 42 (1990), 5264; mer Faruk erifolu,
Unutulmaz Efsane! 18731969 Ebzziya Takvimleri, Cogito 22 (2000), 145152; and zgr
Tresay, Contribution lhistoire de ldition ottomane: les almanachs Ebzziya (1880
1900), in Printing and Publishing in the Middle East: Journal of Semitic Studies. Supplement
24, ed. Philip Sadgrove (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 129154.
235
began with a prologue in which Ebzziya explained why he had produced

an almanac for women:
To raise good children, we have to train good mothers [...] Because a farmer
who wants to have a good crop has to make great efforts in order to prepare
his field. If the husband applied this principle to his relationship with his
wife, how well would be the child reared by them! The moral virtues of the
peoples are maintained, after all, by the mothers education...So, I have
been thinking for a long time about preparing a useful almanac for you.39
This small book, called an almanac, is an everyday booklet to be consulted
throughout the year. Because everyone consults the almanac to check their
special days, the seasons, some important days of each season [...] and
feasts. I can conclude, from my own thirty-year experience, that there is no
more useful cultural medium for the spread of knowledge than the almanac.
A man or a woman, who can read a little bit, can learn much more from an
almanac than from any other person.40
Ebzziya stated his intent clearly: To educate better mothers in order to

raise better children. As an experienced publisher, and especially as a
leading figure in almanac publishing, Ebzziya was impelled to publish
an almanac targeting a female audience, both for financial and ideological
reasons. He thus became part of the public debate on womens question.
In his opinion, publishing an almanac was the best way to express his
view on this subject, i.e., womens progress. But what did a good mother
need to know and consequently teach the child? Ebzziyas answer to this
question shows the kind of social role he accorded women:
Everybody has to know, above all, his own relatives and parents, his own
people and community. The ancestors and relatives of his friends, neighbors or foreigners should come afterward [...] Given the actual state of our
cultural orientation, you are probably curious about the famous women in
Europe [...] As you will not be able to find information about them in this
almanac, I suppose that you will accuse me of being old fashioned, of being
interested in worn out antiquities, but, you would be mistaken, because first
of all you must know about the famous Muslim women. It is our duty to
instruct you about them, and it is your duty to teach them to the child you
will bear.41
39In his almanac for 1306/18891890, Ebzziya published an advertisement of a womens almanac prepared by him and called Takvm-i muhaddert, with publication planned
for 1890. For unknown reasons, it did not appear. If it had been published, it would have
been the first almanac in Ottoman Turkish targeting a female audience.
40Ebzziya, Ey kirm- nisvn, in Takvmn-Nis, 58.
41 Ebzziya, Ey kirm- nisvn, in Takvmn-Nis, 1215.
236
zgr tresay
Thus, the social role of women as mothers clearly consisted of the preservation of national, i.e., Muslim religious values and their transmission to
the next generation. It would be a mistake to focus on the word preservation and miss the modernist aspect of this approach toward the womens
question. This approach was widespread among reformist intellectuals of
that period.42 One of the leading ideologues of the early Tanzmt period,
Sadk Rifat Paa, argued at the end of the 1840s that,
The state should provide a good upbringing for female children, since personal maturity is among the honorable attributes for girls [...] the motherly
embrace is indeed the earliest school for human beings. Therefore it would
be a great service for the nation and humanity to train mothers who will
provide their children religious and moral education while nursing them.43
This modern formulation of womens role should not be qualified as

nationalist but rather as proto-nationalist. The nationalist conception,
stemming from an explicitly modern worldview of the relation between
state and society, monopolized the ideological background of the public discourse on the womens question only after 1908, during the Second Constitutional period, assigning women a precise and rationalized
social role in the nationalist project, namely modern motherhood, within
the general framework of the modern state and the corresponding social
mobilization of political subjects.44 In Ebzziyas vision, however, these
two basic dimensions of state citizenship and social mobilization were
missing. Ebzziya dealt only with the social role of woman as mother in
the modern family.
All the same, intrinsic to this modern role for mothers was a fundamental duty to preserve and transmit the core national values to their children.
Seen from this perspective, in an age of radical cultural transformation,
womens social role was restricted to the preservation of identity. The
national identity was to be preserved in the family, which was the crche
of the nation. In this case, the question of womens progress was seen by
men only as part of a vast utilitarian discourse on national progress. In his
42Marilyn Booth, Woman in Islam: Men and the Womens Press in Turn-of-the-20thCentury Egypt, International Journal of Middle East Studies 33 (2001), 181.
43Rifat Paa, Ahlk rislesinin zeyli, Mntehabt- sr, vol. 7 (Istanbul, Ali Bey
Matbaas, 1293/1876), 18, quoted in Seluk Akin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 18391908: Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 57.
44For a general discussion on this linkage of motherhood and citizenship, see Fsun
stel, Makbul Vatanda n Peinde. II. Merutiyetten Bugne Vatandalk Eitimi (Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 2004), 112126.
237
prologue, Ebzziya addressed women as passive recipients. He argued

clearly that it was men who had to elevate the cultural level of women. In
fact, from this perspective, there was hardly a womens question. There
was only a mens question on womens progress.45
In the following article, entitled The daily account and the assessment
of conscience, Ebzziya outlined the portrait of the ideal woman, listing
all the virtues enumerated by one of the leading names of the American
Revolution, Benjamin Franklin: Temperance (riyzet): Eat not to dullness
and drink not to elevation. Silence (skt): Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation. Order (intizm): Let all
your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.
Resolution (tahss-i maksad): Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform
without fail what you resolve. Frugality (tasarruf): Make no expense but
to do good to others or yourself, i.e., Waste nothing. Industry (say): Lose
no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary
actions. Sincerity (istikamet): Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and
justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice (hakkaniyet): Wrong
none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation (itidl): Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as
you think they deserve. Cleanliness (nezfet): Tolerate no uncleanness in
body, clothes or habitation. Tranquility (huzr- kalb): Be not disturbed
at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity (iffet): Never
give in to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or anothers peace
or reputation. Humility (tevz): Imitate the persons that you consider
clever and wise.46
Ebzziya, who also wrote a short biography of Benjamin Franklin,47 basically copied Franklins list, except for three differences. First, he changed
45Put in a similar historical context, Marilyn Booth states: What was identified as
the woman question at various historical moments and in a range of societies, including
Egypt, needs to be scrutinized equally as the man question, see Marilyn Booth, Woman
in Islam, 174.
46Tedkik-i efl ve muhsebe-i nefs, in Takvmn-Nis, 2833, for the original version
of Benjamin Franklins list, see http://www.flamebright.com/PTPages/Benjamin.asp. It
should be noted that the famous Poor Richards Almanack published by Benjamin Franklin
between 1733 and 1757 was a real cultural transfer and translation phenomenon for almost
two centuries. Parts of this work were translated into German, French, Italian, and even
Bulgarian, several times. See Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink, Transferts culturels transatlantiques
et circulation des savoirs dans les cultures populairesle cas des almanachs Benjamin
Franklin, Tangence 72 (2003), 2740.
47Ebzziya Tevfik, Benjamen Franklen (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya, 1299/1882),
36 pages, 3rd edition in 1890, 48 pages).
238
zgr tresay
the order of chastity and tranquility. Second, he omitted the phrase Rarely
use venery but for health or offspring in the translation of the meaning
of chastity given by Franklin. Finally, where he writes on humility to imitate the persons that you consider clever and wise, he changed Franklins
original phrase which was imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Having defined each virtue, Ebzziya explained how women should
use this list. After this explanation, began the real calendar section of the
almanac, divided into twelve parts. Each month was comprised of some
ten to fifteen pages organized under the same rubrics, the first being the
calendar of the respective month.
The calendar was printed on two pages. The first page included three
different calendar systems, the Muslim lunar calendar (hicr kamer), the
Gregorian calendar (efrenc), and the Ottoman financial calendar called
Rm takvm. The order of the calendars was noteworthy in itself. In
Ottoman society each religious community had its own calendar system
while the state used another, a financial one, for bureaucratic purposes.
In the nineteenth century, there was even a plurality of hours: alafranga
and alla turca. With the modernization process and the obvious European presence and influence on Ottoman society, progressively, during
the second half of the nineteenth century the Gregorian calendar gained
ground at the expense of the others. The almanacs published during the
last two decades of the century generally included all the different calendar systems on the same page. Nevertheless, Ottoman almanacs generally
marked the first of March, which was the first day of the Ottoman financial calendar, as the beginning of the year.
In Ebzziyas almanacs, the Muslim solar and lunar years appear only
on the cover page, but these almanacs generally did not follow the Muslim solar or lunar year. However, after publishing almanacs for almost
twenty years, when Ebzziya finally succeeded at publishing almanacs for
women, he again followed the Muslim lunar year. The first almanac aimed
at a female audience, Nevsl-i Nisvn discussed above, also followed the
Muslim lunar year. In that sense, it can be argued that Ebzziya believed
that in order to transmit traditional Muslim values to children, mothers
had to live in the Muslim religious temporality.
The second rubric was titled as Bugn ne yaptm? (What did I do
today?). It consisted of four blank pages, which in turn were divided into
the days of the month. Ebzziyas thirteen virtues appeared at the head of
the first page. Encouraging confessional self-reflection, Ebzziya encouraged women to fill in the relevant days blank case with one or more virtues every night, according to the accomplishments of the day.
239
These blank pages for daily conscience assessments were typical of

European almanacs of the nineteenth century and were present in almost
all Ottoman almanacs. In Ebzziyas almanac series, blank pages appear
only in the 1899 version, but without references to any virtues. The fact
that Ebzziya decided to include references to moral virtues only in his
almanac for women implies that Takvmn-Nis had a didactic mission.
The very existence of these blank pages could be interpreted as a sign of
the emergence of an Ottoman bourgeois mentality.48 Ebzziyas assumption that women would fill in the blank pages on a daily basis conferred
a confessional quality to the everyday life of the Ottoman Muslim woman
and inculcated in her bourgeois values. As Molly McCarthy wrote in the
context of American almanacs, the use of an almanac as a daily diary
transformed the printed pamphlet into a more personal record and the
dailiness of the entries reflected a more linear sense of time.49 Similarly,
in the case of Takvmn-Nis, its potential record-keeping function could
convert it to a diary, i.e., into a serial narrative of its users life.
The other rubrics that appeared every month were household management (vesya-y beytiyye), mother and child (vlide ve evld), organizing
your time (vaktini iyi kullan), historical didactic anecdotes (fide-i trihiye), aphorisms on women (nisvna mteallik letif-i mlhazt), and
proverbs on women (nisvna mteallik darb- meseller) and on the household (hneye mteallik akvl emsl).
Under the first of these rubrics, household management, Ebzziya provides a lot of information concerning food conservation and cooking, and
practical tips for carpet cleaning and storing and for dealing with fragile
textiles like silk. Under the rubric mother and child, he employed an
instructional and moralistic rhetoric strongly critical of a specific conception of motherhood in the Ottoman upper classes. First stressing the
importance of children for the country, the community, and the future
of humanity, he then emphasized the formative role of the mother and
firmly insisted on the mothers duty of breastfeeding her baby. He finally
48See the case study of Franois Georgeon and Paul Dumont, Un bourgeois dIstanbul
au dbut du XXe sicle, Turcica 17 (1985), 127187.
49Molly McCarthy, A Page, A Day: A History of the Daily Diary in America, PhD dissertation (Brandeis University, 2004), chapter 1: Telling Time by the Book: The Almanac
as Daily Diary: 1258; see also Alison Anne Chapman, Reforming Time: Calendars and
Almanacs in Early Modern England, PhD dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1996),
158188.
240
zgr tresay
criticized the habit common in the Ottoman higher classes of entrusting

babies and small children to the care of wet nurses and nursemaids.50
The rubric organizing your time included aphorisms with two main
themes, sleep and idleness. Sleep was a waste of time. There would be
enough time to sleep in the grave. The sleeping fox could not hunt any
chickens. Idleness was the mother of gossip. Idleness was the little brother
of death, and so on. This emphasis on organizing time is undoubtedly
a modern attitude.51 The very nature of almanacs reveals much about a
given societys concepts of time. The history of time conceptions in Ottoman society is gradually being studied.52
The historical didactic anecdotes section implies that Muslim mothers
should take as their examples famous Muslim women. Ebzziya presented
their biographies, the Prophet Muhammads wives and female relatives,
emphasizing four virtues: fidelity, chastity, generosity, and courage. The
same famous Muslim womens biographies written by Fatma Aliye were
published in Hanmlara mahss gazete in that period.
Aphorisms and proverbs on women and aphorisms concerning the
household are equally noteworthy. Some of these aphorisms concerning
the household were of Turkish origin and some were not. The latter were
probably translated from French texts. They outlined the basic moral principles of housewifery and neighborhood. The masculine discourse apparent in these aphorisms displays a kind of unrefined humor. The proverbs
on women were of Turkish origin and as one scholar observed,53 they tell
a great deal about the asymmetric, hierarchical relations between the genders and, above all, about womens social and sexual identity.
Ebzziya had a great interest in proverbs, which ensued from the cultural trend of his intellectual milieu in the 1860s. In fact, all European
almanacs included proverbs. One of his spiritual masters, inasi, was one
of the first Ottoman intellectuals to feel the need to compile and publish proverbs. Ebzziya, when preparing the third edition of the anthology of proverbs of inasi, added more than two thousand to the already
50See Takvmn-nis, especially 83, 97, 108109, 121, 135, 149, 164165, 176177.
51 See E. P. Thompson, Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism, Past and
Present 38 (1968), 5797; and also Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir (Paris: Gallimard,
2000 [1975]), 175183.
52Franois Georgeon and Frdric Hitzel (eds.), Les Ottomans et Le Temps (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 2012).
53Trkan Erdoan, Cinsiyete zg nan Sisteminin Kltrel Yerleiminde Trk
Ataszlerinin Rol, in Kadn almalarnda Disiplinleraras Buluma 14 Mart 2004.
Sempozyum Bildiri Metinleri I (Istanbul: Yeditepe niversitesi, 2004), 191198.
241
compiled two thousand.54 However, Ebzziya himself had never included

proverbs in any almanac that he published before. As he was convinced
that women had to transmit traditional values to children, he ultimately
must have placed importance in including included proverbs in his
womens almanac.
There is also a part of twenty-four pages that provides biographical
information and pictures of the wives of European monarchs, the German
Empires princesses, and the French emperors and kings wives between
1804 and 1870, and finally a historical account of the decorations and
orders conferred upon ladies in Europe. This kind of dynastic information appeared in every European and Ottoman almanac.
The second part of the almanac, called by Ebzziya himself The
general part: Various information on Women (mlmt- mtenevvia-i
nisiyye) included several topics such as The famous actresses of Parisian theaters (11 pages); Hairdressing (7 pages); The eightieth birthday
of Queen Victoria (4 pages); The comet (7 pages); the biography of
Mihrnnis Nur Cihan Bigem, an Indian Mughal princess of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries (6 pages); and some statistics on womens
professions in New York and in Europe. This section filled 128 pages and
included more than 80 illustrations.
The article on hairdressing included some simple drawings representing different hairstyles in ancient Greece, Rome, and modern Europe.55
Ebzziya apologized for not providing the hairdressing styles of each
century, this was due to a lack of time. Nevertheless, he promised that
the almanac of the following year would include different hairdressing
styles and national historical costumes. This article is especially thoughtprovoking because throughout the text, Ebzziya gave the dates in the
Gregorian calendar. For instance, the date of the Ottoman conquest of
Constantinople is given as 1453 AD, not as 832 AH (after Hegira). In fact,
Ebzziyas world of almanacs reflected the plurality of temporal references
of the Ottoman society, and their simultaneous usage. In his prologue he
urged Ottoman Muslim women to stay in a Muslim temporality by using
the Muslim lunar calendar (hicr kamer takvm), but, at the same time, the
article on hairdressing placed women in the Gregorian calendar.
54Durb- emsl-i osmniye (inasi-Ebzziya) (Constantinople: Matbaa-i Ebzziya,

1302/1885), 510 pages.
55Mutat (sa taramak), in Takvmn-Nis, 237243.
242
zgr tresay
In the section on famous Parisian actresses, Ebzziya gave information

about their civil status, careers, and incomes. Ironically, some aspects of
the lives of these actresses contradicted his ethical stance on the mothers
duty to the child and his utilitarian discourse on womens progress. For
example, in the biography of the Italian cantatrice Adelina Patti (1843
1919) of the Paris opera, he wrote that she had been married three times
and that the first two marriages had never been consummated.56
The second part of the almanac included an article on feminism.57 In
this article, written in a completely neutral tone, after giving an extensive historical account of womens activism and legal positions in several European countries and in the United States, Ebzziya concluded
that feminism was irrelevant to the case of Muslim women, since Islam
granted them all the rights that their Western counterparts had either
only recently achieved or were still struggling for. This article was also
placed in the historical context of the Gregorian era. A defensive position
against feminism was very common to many Muslim intellectuals consideration of the womens question in late nineteenth-century Ottoman
society and in the Middle East. Ebzziya supported his argumentation by
giving historical examples of women who were judges or experts in the
canon law of Islam, and by trying to show that Islam was not only compatible with but also supportive of womens rights and freedom in society.58
An article entitled Selection of domestic servants focused on the social
problem of female slavery in the late nineteenth century.59 The imperial
decrees banning the female slave trade (issued in 1854 for white and 1857
for black slaves) became effective with the ratification of international
treaties in the last decades of the century.60 Ebzziya clearly stated that
this was a major social problem: After the abolition of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, Muslim families began to employ Ottoman non-Muslims as
domestic servants, but, given the novelty of the use of formal employees
56Paris tiyatrolarnda oyunculukta mahretleri ve sadlarnda halvetleri ile mehr

olan nisvn, in Takvmn-nis, 230.
57On this article, see my Mecmua-i Ebzziyada Tesettr Meselesi, and N. Ayla
Demirolu, 1899da Osmanl Basnnda Feminizm, Tarih ve Toplum 114 (June 1993),
5356.
58Feminizm, in Takvmn-Nis, 254281.
59See on this subject Yavuz Selim Karakla, Kadn Dergilerinde (18691927) Osmanl
Hanmlar ve Hizmeti Kadnlar, Toplumsal Tarih 63 (March 1999), 1524.
60See Deniz Kandiyoti, End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey, in
Women, Islam and the State, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1991), 27.
243
as domestic servants in Muslim families, many new problems emerged.

The earlier institution of slavery provided the possibility for the slave to
become a full member of the family, so slaves were generally loyal and
motivated. At the end of his article, Ebzziya gave twelve facial expressions of good and bad servants. In these drawings, the good servants have
a frank and well-intentioned smile while the bad servants have a malicious and ill-natured look. Ebzziya offered as his source a French almanac of the period.
The last article of the almanac was entitled Should women read and
write? This time, Ebzziya enumerated famous Ottoman women of the
period such as Leyla Saz, Fatma Aliye, and others as fitting models for his
audience. He concluded in the same utilitarian discourse that he used
in the prologue: Only children reared by women like Fatma Aliye would
regenerate the Ottoman Empire. For this reason women had to learn to
read and write, and they had to progress in this field even more than men
because childrens primary education depended on them.
Conclusion
By placing the womens almanac Takvmn-nis in the general framework
of intellectual debates on the womens question in the broader context
of the history of the end of the nineteenth-century Middle East, three
main observations can be made: First, Ebzziya addressed his almanac to
elite Ottoman women. Second, the almanac had a highly eclectic character. Third, the almanac blended different temporalities and conceptions
of time.
The readership Ebzziya set up rhetorically was an elite one. This is
confirmed by the moralistic criticism addressed to women of Ottoman
high society and the article concerning the selection of employed domestic servants.
Concerning the basic purpose of the almanac, the author emphasized
the formative influence of mothers. Ebzziya placed the question of womens progress in general and of their education and training in particular
within the broader context of the contemporary comprehensive utilitarian
discourse on national progress and community welfare. This was a modern and instrumental approach to the womens question. Nevertheless,
the woman remained a passive agent since she operated like a channel for
male-dictated education. In that sense, it was also a paternalistic view on
womens progress. Women were represented as unproductive members of
244
zgr tresay
society, a wasted national resource. The improvement of womens status

was thus seen by most contemporary reformers as a necessary condition
for national progress. They assigned women a precise role in this process:
the preservation of traditional values and their transmission to children.
The nature of these values was somewhat ambiguous and eclectic. Proverbs, aphorisms, Franklins list of virtues, and biographical sketches all
together resulted in an eclectic corpus of values. The four virtues (fidelity,
chastity, generosity, courage) stressed in the historical anecdotes presented
through the life stories of premodern Arab women were commonplace at
that time. The meanings of thirteen virtues (temperance, silence, order,
resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness,
tranquility, chastity, and humility) given by Franklin suggested the profound influence of the Protestant ethic.61 This Protestant influence was
even more evident through the insistence on self-reflection with diarykeeping, which clearly reflects the Protestant tradition of keeping a daily
account of ones actions. The encouragement to use the almanac as a
vehicle for self-discipline was an important feature in Takvmn-nis.
Keeping a diary was not a strictly personal affair. This activity also
involved time-consciousness, a very modern attitude which emphasized
organizing time. Especially noteworthy is the rhetorical criticism of sleep
and idleness. This emphasis points at a radical change in the conception
of time in Ottoman society. It is also important to note that the almanac
encouraged Muslim women to live in the Muslim temporality, while the
same concern did not exist for Muslim men. In other terms, it is implicitly
accepted that men were already living in Ottoman financial, i.e., secular,
temporality and efforts should be focused on urging women to stay in a
Muslim, i.e., religious, temporality.
However, Ebzziya did not hesitate to translate articles presupposing a
Gregorian calendar. Apparently, the female readers of Takvmn-Nis had
to live in the Muslim temporality concerning the present, but could read
articles concerning the historical past in another temporality.
Comparison with ordinary almanacs would shed further light on the
question of temporality. Two other major differences existed between
other almanacs and almanacs specifically targeting a female audience.
61See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Unwin
Hyman, 1989). It would be fruitful to compare these ethic principles proposed by Ebzziya
with those of the traditional Ottoman economic ethic and mind examined in Sabri F.
lgeners insightful study: ktisadi zlmenin Ahlak ve Zihniyet Dnyas. Fikir ve Sanat
Tarihi Boyu Akisleri le Bir Portre Denemesi (Istanbul: Der Yaynlar, 1951, first edition).
245
The latter did not include sections concerning the outstanding events of
the previous year, which was an essential feature in almost every ordinary Ottoman almanac. For instance, the previous almanac of Ebzziya,
mentioned above, contained a very detailed account of the Dreyfus Affair.
Nothing similar is noted in Takvmn-Nis, except from a brief account of
famous women who had died the previous year. Another essential difference concerns chronologies. In fact, every Ottoman almanac and all the
official yearbooks included various and very detailed historical chronologies, universal, Islamic, Ottoman and so on.62 Ebzziyas other almanacs
had fifteen to twenty pages of chronologies, sometimes including more
than three hundred dates, all briefly explained. There is not a single chronology in the womens almanac. Apparently, from Ebzziyas perspective, contemporary events and important historical dates did not concern
women. History was made outside the house, and womens place even in
modern society was in the domestic sphere.
62On this topic, see my Le temps des almanachs ottomans: usage des calendriers et
temps de lhistoire (18731914), in Les Ottomans et le temps, ed. Franois Georgeon and
Frdric Hitzel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2012), 129157.
246
zgr tresay
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Chapter Eleven
Womens Representations in Ottoman Cartoons

and the Satirical Press on the Eve
of the Kemalist Reforms (19191924)
Franois Georgeon
Reforms undertaken by Kemal Atatrk on behalf of womens emancipation in the first years of the Turkish Republic are well known: incentives
to discontinue the use of the veil; efforts to extend the education and
literacy of girls; the adoption of the civil code which led to equality of the
sexes under the law and outlawed polygamy; and the right to vote and
serve in office on the local level in 1931 and on the national level in 1934.
One could say that by this latter date, then, at least legally, women had
attained equality with men.
These reforms were, in fact, the logical extension of an initial emancipation movement which had already made great strides in the second half
of the nineteenth century: the opening of schools for girls, the emergence
of a feminist press, and the activism of a number of upper-class women on
behalf of their sisters. With the Young Turk revolution of 1908, various associations were founded with the aim of promoting the female sex, women
began to make their appearance in public spaces, female militants began
to take part in public life, and intellectuals demanded equality between
males and females. Parallel to these developments, womens participation
in the workforce began to develop, if tentatively; it then made a dramatic
upturn during the Balkan Wars and especially during World War I. During the latter war, reforms were undertaken by the Young Turks, notably
the decree on the family (Aile Hukuk Kararnamesi)1 which modified the
institution of marriage to womens advantage. Finally, the womans issue
as such was taken up and debated by intellectuals in various newspapers
and magazines.
What is less known is the attitudes of the public toward womens
emancipation. What did the man in the street, the average Turk think
1Aile Hukuk Kararnamesi was implemented until the adoption of the Civil Code in
1926.
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of all this? We may be able to suggest a possible and partial answer to

this question with an examination of the cartoons and satiric press of the
period. The humorist, more than the journalist, is situated in a relation of
complicity with the reader. In addition, reading is not even necessary to
appreciate a cartoon or satirical drawing: it is enough to happen upon the
newspaper or journal in a coffee house where there is most likely someone at hand to read the caption and laugh with the habitus.
The basis of the present research is the satirical press of Istanbul and
cartoons2a rich source for womens history. A dozen or so humoristic
newspapers and magazines were examined for this study, including Aydede, Kelebek, Cem, Ayine, Karagz, Akbaba, Diken, Zmrd- Anka, Guguk,
Gleryz, nci, etc., all of which circulated in Istanbul. The period of examination is from 1919 to the first months of the Republic, ending in 1924.3
As in the years immediately following the Young Turk revolution of 1908,
after 1919 as well we are witness to a proliferation of satirical magazines.
However, the later publications clearly differ from those of the Young Turk
period. They are longer lived, sometimes running for several years, and are
of an uncontestably superior quality. Contributors include excellent caricaturists and draftsmen such as Sedad Simavi and Ramiz Gke, alongside
renowned writers such as Refik Halid [Karay] and Ahmed Rasim. Also, it
is striking how young most contributors were: in 1920, Ramiz Gke was a
mere twenty years of age; Mnif Fehim was twenty-one, Cemal Nadir was
eighteen, and Sedad Simavi was twenty-four years old. These humorists
and draftsmen, who lavished attention on the topic of women, were all
men, at least as far as our inquiry has determined. The French language,
which had earlier appeared with some frequency in articles and cartoon
captions, was now largely a thing of the past. Finally, this was a press
which, like the serious press, was subject to censorshipin fact, coming
from two quarters: that of the occupying forces, and that of the Istanbul
government. This, however, did not deter some satirical journals from taking positions, from choosing a camp: while Gleryz was openly Kemalist,
2See, for example, the work by Orhan Kololu, Trkiye Karikatr Tarihi (Istanbul:
Bileim, 2005), as well as that by Turgut eviker, Geliim Srecinde Trk Karikatr, t. 3,
Kurtulu Sava Dnemi, 19181923 (Istanbul: Adam, 1991); both are richly illustrated.
3On Istanbul during this period, see Bilge Criss, Igal Altnda Istanbul, 19181923 (Istanbul: Iletiim, 1994), and Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul, in Dnden Bugne
Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6 (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl; Istanbul: Trkiye Ekonomik ve
Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1994).
womens representations in ottoman cartoons
251
Aydede supported the Istanbul government and even went as far as to

criticize the Anatolian resistance.4
Certain journals disappeared with the entry of the Kemalist troops into
Istanbul, among them Aydede, whose place was taken by the more prudent
Akbaba. Whatever the case, political conditions were doubtless instrumental in directing the satirical presss attention toward what we could call
social topics such as living conditions in Istanbul during the armistice:
the high cost of living, physical discomforts, penury, the lack of heating,
hungerand, of course, at the center of attention, the womens issue.5
Interesting parallels exist between the satirical press and caricature in
the last days of the Ottoman Empire and contemporary theater. These
two forms of expression were born at almost the same time: the first Ottoman satirical journal, Diyojen, appeared in 1870, while the first Ottoman
theater troupe, that of Gedik Paa, was founded by Gll Agop, most
likely in the same year. Non-Muslims, particularly Armenians and Greeks,
played a major role in the origins of both the satirical press and the theater. And the phases they passed though were quite similar: the heyday
periods were 187076, a few years starting in 1908, and again between
1919 and 1924, alternating with periods of censorship and sidelining during the authoritarian regime of Abdlhamid between 1878 and 1908 and
the Young Turk dictatorship of 1913 to 1918. Moreover, like the theater,
caricature also stages life in its own way: it makes visible, it unveils in
all senses of the term. It expresses what the serious press cannot express,
exposes what the serious press cannot expose. Thus, like theater, it functions as both entertainment and social critique. But unlike its serious
counterpart, the satirical press draws the visual attention of the reader
through its images and drawings.6
4On this political aspect, cf. Cneyt Okay, Dnemin Mizah Dergilerinde Milli Mcadele
Karikatrleri (Ankara: Kltr ve Turizm Bakanl, 2004).
5See my work in the Ottoman satirical press: Au bord du rire et des larmes: les
Turcs dIstanbul pendant la guerre et loccupation (19141923), in Istanbul 19141923, ed.
Stphane Yerasimos (Paris: Autrement, 1992), 78105. Republished in Des Ottomans aux
Turcs. Naissance dune nation (Istanbul: ISIS, 1995), 332368. This article is based on a study
of the satirical press of the period; certain of its passages have been freely re-adapted in
this text.
6By this point it had already been some time since the image and the portrait made
a place for themselves in Ottoman society; cf. Johann Strauss, Limage moderne dans
lempire ottoman: quelques points de repre, in La multiplication des images en pays
dislam: de lestampe la tlvision (17e21e sicle), ed. Bernard Heyberger and Sylvia Naef
(Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2003), 139176.
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Women always occupied a privileged place in the Ottoman satirical

press.7 As early as the 1870s, a number of drawings depicted womens fashion and its evolution by placing women clothed in traditional garb side
by side with those dressed in the modern style.8 After 1908, women once
again took their due places in the humoristic and satirical press that flourished around that date.9 But this was nothing compared to what transpired after 1919: from then on, women were omnipresent in practically all
journals of satire. One could say that, excepting one or two publications,
they became the preeminent theme for this genre as well as the favorite
subject of drawings and cartoons.
Thus we have in our possession a rich material indeed for studying such
issues as perceptions of feminine fashions in dress, the womans condition
(segregation of the sexes, etc.), behavior, romance, the couple and marriage, the place of the woman in public life and in politics, and the issue
of equality between men and women.
Woman as the Center of Attention
We begin by comparing two humorous drawings that were drawn about a
dozen years apart. One, from the hand of the renowned draftsman Cemil
Cem, was published in his eponymous review in 1911 (figure 7.1).10 The
other appeared in the journal Ayine in 1922 (figure 7.2).11 Here, a comparison of Istanbul societys gazes upon the modern woman reveals both
continuities and changes, as recorded by the humorists pen.
The first difference is the woman herself: in 1911, she is most elegant in a
short cape and long skirt, and a hat with a small veil; she is fully covered.
Here the draftsman sought to depict a foreigneror, a non-Muslim; perhaps a Levantine from the Pera district in the latest fashion from Paris. In
1922, the young woman and object of everyones gaze has short hair tied
back in a simple scarf, a low bodice in dcollet, and a short skirt ending
at the knee. With a short wand or switch in one hand, she irresistibly calls
7Cf. Orhan Kololu, Karikatrmze Kadnn Girii, in Toplumsal Tarih, February
2004 (special issue on caricature in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey), 7883.
8See Nora eni, La mode et le vtement fminin dans la presse satirique dIstanbul
la fin du XIXe sicle, in Presse turque et presse de Turquie, ed. Nathalie Clayer, Alexandre
Popovic, and Thierry Zarcone (Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1992), 189209.
9See Palmira Brumett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press,
19081911 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).
10Cem, no. 5, 18 February 1911.
11 Ayine, no. 39, May 1922.
253
to mind figures representing a cosmopolitan taste. In any case, the evolution separating the two is quite impressive: the woman of 1922 is less covered and seems considerably more at ease than her equivalent of a mere
eleven years earlier. The physical attitudes are also different: in 1911 she is
striking a pose, with something rigid in her demeanor, while the body of
her 1922 counterpart seems to be alive, in motion.
Considering those gazing on these drawings from 1911 and 1922, Cem
has separated them into two groups: those on the right are men of differing age and appearance who, by the way they look at her (and the few
words they utter) all convey their ardor for the modern woman and their
desire to seduce her. A few examples include a young officer twirling his
mustache and wondering aloud how he can impart to the young beauty
that he is from Rumeli, so that she will understand that he is a hero, one
of the Young Turks responsible for the 1908 revolution, in addition to being
a man of modern views. The muhacir (immigrant) in the middle expresses
his admiration in his dialect, something like Just what the doctor ordered!
(Lokman hekmn ye ded). The remaining three are also clearly smitten.
To the left, Cem has sketched three disapproving glares: above, a religious
figure of some kind for whom this woman is a diabolic creature; below
him, an elderly man who longs for the old days when he was spared such
sights; and finally, at the bottom left, an older woman, covered from head
to toe, horrified, says, May she go to the devil, that one!
Figure 7.1.The woman of 1911.
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Figure 7.2.The woman of 1922.
255
Eleven years later, in the Ayine illustration, once again we find eight individuals gathered around the woman: eight faces, that is, but this time, no
speech. The draftsman must have thought that their facial expressions
alone conveyed their separate reactions. Two of the eight are, so to say,
familiar: the dowager with a reproachful glare and the cleric, shocked as
ever. The other masculine figures each express their passion in their own
way; we have here a veritable gallery of male portraits: the seducer, treating the lady to his most winning smile; the swain who sends her a kiss
from afar, his lips shaped like a heart; the frustrated aspirant sticking out
his tongue; the policeman who knows he should not look (he must be
on duty), but cannot resist a quick glance from the corner of his eye; the
voyeur who scrutinizes the womans silhouette from over his glasses
and lastly, the pervert who blows in the direction of her skirt in order to
make it lift up a little! All told, the attitudes conveyed here are noticeably
bolder and more brazen than those of twelve years earlier.12
There is one new figure among these observers: a young woman in
the right hand corner. Her face, which seems to closely resemble that
of the model, expresses overt curiosity; in fact, she appears to identify with
the emancipated creature before her in a sort of mirroring effect. Doubtless the caricaturist sought to represent a young Turkish woman who has
taken this modern woman as a model, wholly identifying with her.
The Identity of the Modern Woman
So who is this woman who captures everyones attention? This modern, emancipated woman with European airs, so decisive, often scantily
clothed, now mans equal, strolling freely in the streets? In her short skirt,
embellished with jewelry, who is she, really, within the Istanbul society
of the period? Is she a foreigner? An adventurer, accompanying the allied
troops? A Levantine, a non-Muslim, a Greek, a Jew, or an Armenian?
Could she be a Turk, a Muslim? Or simply the figment of a dream, a caricaturists fantasy?
The satirical journals offer responses to this question, each in their
own waya question that also clearly preoccupies the man in the street.
12Concerning the switch carried by women in the satirical press I have only hypotheses. It seems that in this period in Europe, the switch was an accessory of men, particularly
dandys. Perhaps the Ottoman caricaturists represented these very occidentalized women
with an essentially masculine symbol in order to satirize them.
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They do this by representing naive characters, those who have not yet witnessed or understood the rapid changes in the status of woman that had
occurred since World War I, those who have not yet grasped the identity
of this new female figure.
In this role of the naive observer we may immediately cite the Anatolian, the peasant or small town provincial who has traveled up (in the
common parlance) to the capital: this is the muhacir, or immigrant, from
the Balkans or the Caucasus, astonished at the spectacle of Istanbul. This
could also be the Muslim from Central Asia, an Uzbek or Tajik, who for
the Turks of Istanbul symbolized a more uncompromising or conservative
Islam. Among Istanbul residents we could cite also children, of course,
with their direct and guileless gazes; and, finally, a frequently encountered category, that of Istanbul dowagers, elderly ladies utterly incapable of understanding the manners and morals of the new generations
young women.
In a cartoon published in Diken an immigrant standing before a woman
in a short skirt, exclaims: Poor thing, she didnt have enough money to
finish her dress!13 In another example, a muhacir woman, a child on her
back, in torn clothing that leaves her half exposed, applauds the Istanbulite: Bravo to the women of Istanbul, she says. In order not to make
us feel ashamed [of our poverty], they also walk around half naked!14 A
Central Asian man is talking to an Istanbul resident, with two modern
young women with short hair and short skirts in the background: They
say that the women of Istanbul are very free, he says naively, What a
lie! I havent seen a Muslim woman out in the street since I got here!
(figure 7.3).15
The naif is sometimes a child; for example, the one whose grandmother
had promised to take him to the movies. At the entrance to the movie
theater, he spies some movie posters with nearly naked women and
concludes that his grandma has brought him to the hamam instead! In
another example, Akbaba presents an elderly lady who contemplates her
daughter or granddaughter from her armchair: They say that young girls
these days have no morals. Thank God, our girl never goes out without
her prayer beads (tesbih) around her neck, she declares with admiration;
of course, the tesbih in question is, in fact, a long string of pearls that
13Diken, no. 32, 27 November 1919.

14Akbaba, no. 111, 27 December 1923.
15Akbaba, no. 43, 3 May 1923.
257
Figure 7.3.What a lie!
the young lady is twirling coquettishly.16 Again in Akbaba, an old couple are out walking contentedly along the beach under the moonlight.
The gentleman remarks, How pleasant it is to stroll along under the full
moon listening to the gentle lapping of the waves along the shore. But
what the poor old fellow takes to be the murmer of the waves is in fact a
sonorous embrace enjoyed by a young couple obscured by the darkness
(figure 7.4).17 And finally, a young lady outfitted in the latest fashion, short
16Akbaba, no. 127, 21 February 1924.

17Akbaba, no. 82, 17 September 1923.
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Figure 7.4.The full moon and the waves.
skirt and loafers, an umbrella casually tossed over her shoulder, walks by
within sight of Karagz and an Anatolian peasant, who asks his companion, My dear Sir Karagz, is that lady Greek, Russian, Turkish, or Jewish?
Karagz replies: Nothing of the kind, my friend; she is an Istanbulite!18
Among the hypotheses that our Anatolian peasant produces regarding
the identity of the modernized woman, we note the presence of a Russian woman. Russians could be found in Istanbulindeed; several tens
of thousands of White Russians, male and female, fled the Bolshevik revolution and found themselves exiled along the shores of the Bosphorus,
among other destinations.19 Comfortable in any milieu from high society to the demi-monde, with their relaxed style so unfamiliar to Istanbul,
these Russian women shook up the codes of conduct in force until that
time. They were instrumental, for example, in the abolition of sexual seg-
18Karagz, no. 1702, July 1924.

19On the White Russiansincluding White Russian womenin Istanbul, cf. Paul
Dumont, Les annes blanches, in Istanbul 19141923, ed. Stphane Yerasimos (Paris:
Autrement, 1992), 184223; Beyaz Ruslar, in Dnden Bugne stanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2
(Ankara: Kltr Bakanl; Istanbul: Trkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1993);
Zafer Toprak, stanbulluya Rusyann Armaanlar: Haraolar, Istanbul 1 (1992), 7279.
259
regation on public transportation (ferries on the Bosphorus, tramways),

a segregation that they tended to ignore.20 Likewise, they may have been
among the instigators of the new fashion of seaside bathing on Florya
beach near Istanbul, a novelty that contrasted with the older seabathing
facilities (deniz hamamlar) reserved for women along the Bosphorus.
What better fodder for humorists and caricaturists than these women, so
free and easy, plunked down in a society constricted by sexual taboos. The
humorists began by assigning them the name harao (beautiful in Russian), and the term quickly caught onof which proof may be found in
the quip of the geography professor drilling a student on the main product exported from Russia; the student eagerly pipes up, the harao!21
They then went on to create numerous funny situations in which men
are depicted as thrown into turmoil at the sight of these blond creatures.
A cartoon in Aydede presents the winter daydreams of a young man who
imagines himself passing the summer on the beach at Florya just outside
the capital, surrounded by a gaggle of harao in bathing suits...22 And in
a coffee house, the arrival of a Russian waitress, blond of course, suffices
to stir the emotions of even the most impassive habitus.23
These White Russian women contributed much to the cosmopolitanism and liberal ambiance in the city; yet the real novelty, that which most
especially caught the attention of our draftsmen and caricaturists, was the
emancipation of the Turkish and Muslim women of Istanbul, a subject
that provided them with copious comic material.
Women in Public Spaces
Truly, whoever she might be, the woman of this period is much more
present and visible in public spaces. The satirical and humorous press of
the era reflects this transformation, which took place so rapidly in Istanbul society, while drawing on it to make their readers laugh.
We have already seen examples of the large number of drawings depicting the indisputable new presence of the woman in the streets; she also
makes use of public transportation. What is new in this regard is that the
20Cf. Plajlar in Dnden Bugne stanbul Anisklopedisi, vol. 6.
21 Ayine, no. 56, September 1922.
22Aydede, no. 20, 9 March 1922.
23These drawings are reproduced in Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul, in
Dnden Bugne Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6 (Ankara: Kltr Bakanl; Istanbul: Trkiye
Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 1994).
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franois georgeon
separation of the sexes, strictly adhered to before the war, has noticeably
relaxed. When public transportation first appeared in Istanbulferries
on the Bosphorus in the middle of the nineteenth century, then the tramways such as that of Tnel connecting Karaky to Beyolu, and the train
out to the suburbsthe issue of the mingling of the sexes arose. It was
settled with the decision to install separate compartments, for example,
on the trains and ferries, and swinging doors or curtains in the trams.
These arrangements meant that, paradoxically, as public transport developed, so, too, did a certain form of sexual segregation throughout the city.
In time, however, this barrier began to slowly give way; first because of
the war, which brought more women into the labor market, thus necessitating their commuting to and fro in the city; then, as noted above, with
the White Russians and other groups of foreign women after the armistice, who no doubt simply refused to pay any mind to it. Finally, in 1923,
segregation of the sexes was officially abolished in public transportation
throughout the city.24
The curtains and swinging doors intended to keep the sexes apart on
public transport were the source of countless pleasantries during the first
years of the satirical press; their suppression proved no less fertile in supplying the humorist with comical situations. In a packed tramway, an
aged lady complains of being wedged in by a man who, clearly, has eyes
only for the young woman on her other side (figure 7.5).25 In the same
vein, in another vignette from Akbaba a young woman tries to persuade
her grandmother to use the tramway: But how am I to sit among all those
men? she protests, Theyll all look at me!26 Karagz, for his part, an
ardent supporter of womens liberation and the mingling of the sexes, is
visibly gratified at the sight of young men and women seated side by side
in a Bosphorus ferry seating compartment. In one of the journals sketches
entitled, After the curtain was suppressed in the ferries, he admonishes
the older generation, pointing to the youth with approval: Now its up to
us to learn from them! (figure 7.6).27
24This point needs more research. A regulation dating from 1913 concerning conveyance by boat indicates that it was expressly forbidden for men to enter the womens sections of the vessels as well as the waiting areas of the ferry landings. (Osman Nuri Ergin
(ed.), Mecelle-i Umr-i Belediyye (Istanbul: Istanbul Bykehir Belediyesi, 1995), vol. 5,
2377). This segregation policy was officially removed in December of 1923 on all public
transport (ferries on the Bosphorus, tramways). Cf. Tanin, 23 December 1923, cited in elik
Glersoy, Tramvay Istanbulda (Istanbul: Istanbul Kitapl, 1989), 4243.
25Zmrud- Anka, no. 124, March 1924.
26Akbaba, no. 110, 24 December 1923.
27Karagz, no. 1647, December 1923.
Figure 7.5.In the tramway.
Figure 7.6.After the curtain was lifted in the ferries...
261
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Another motherlode for our authors was the woman in the working world.
As noted above, the war had served to considerably enlarge the scope of
this phenomenon, whose timid beginnings may be detected in the Young
Turk era.28 One can easily imagine how the humorists might have exploited
this territory. They present the woman in all manner of employment, even
the most improbable, the most masculine, as in a series of sketches
from Aydede entitled, If women were... (Hanmlar...olursa), in which
women are shown in the roles of neighborhood watchman (beki), police,
chauffeur, military officer, mason, even ferryman on the Bosphorus. In
most of the cartoons she is surrounded by a crowd of mensniggering,
mocking, derisive, exciteable. The foil for the modern female figure is that
of the voyeur, who appears around this time, and for whom the Ottomans
came up with a prankish name: rntgenci (X-ray specialist)! Thus, as the
lady-mason works on a scaffold, the voyeurs gather below, and make the
most of this stunning opportunity. In another example, a woman operates
a small ferry that plies the Golden Horn or the Bosphorus; so many men
eagerly jump on board that the rowboat capsizes (figure 7.7).29
The caricaturists push the concept of equality to its (il-)logical conclusions. Since there is no profession that women are incapable of exercising,
why cant they be theologians? Aydede is amused at this possibility, and
under the title, It seems that women will be admitted to the university
theology department, the drawing shows, for example, a mufti, a prayerleader, a judge, and a Quran reciter, using the feminine version of the
word for each one, thus giving them a peculiar resonance to Ottoman
ears (mftiye, vaize, kadiye, etc.).30 In a similar vein, Karagz imagines a
woman preaching from the pulpit at the mosque, explaining to her sisters
how to give birth! Other sketches, less extravagant, poke fun at the idea
of a woman judge, parliamentarian, or university lecturer; although here
we are somewhat closer to historical realities. There had been women
licensed to practice law since the founding of the Republic, and women
parliamentarians made their debut in the Grand National Assembly of
Ankara in 1935. What is being satirized here is mens reactions when
confronted with these novelties. Two members of parliament observe
the entry of a female parliamentarian into the chambers: one gapes,
28Cf. the recent work by Yavuz Selim Karakla, Women, War and Work in the Ottoman
Empire: Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women (19161923) (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2005).
29Aydede, nos. 45 and 46, 5 and 8 June 1922.
30Akbaba, no. 137, 27 March 1924.
Figure 7.7.If women were......
263
264
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wide-eyed; the other twirls his mustache! In another, standing before the
judge, an elderly man, guilty of having beaten his wife, defends himself
by pointing out, But look here, Madame President, shes just a woman!
in the hopes of softening up the magistrate...Kemalist and republican
from the beginning, Karagz, for his part, is pleased at the great strides
forward taken by Turkish women. Among the audience at a lecture given
by a young female graduate of the university, he declares proudly: When
I see young women like her, it makes me want to cry out, Long live the
new (yenilik), long live the Republic!31
The Ottoman World in Reverse
Other public spaces give rise to similar kinds of comic situations as those
noted above. For example, outside the barracks, there is hardly a more
masculine space in the Empire than coffee houses. Well, here, too, Karagz steps up to campaign against segregation. One sketch featuring him
is entitled, It seems that women will be able to frequent coffee houses
(figure 7.8).32 And in the coffee house sketched by the reviews cartoonist,
the clientele is entirely femininewith men serving them! An unimaginable spectacle for Istanbul of 1920. Hacivat is bending over the stove and
Karagz is waiting tables: Two medium-sweet coffees for our customers
over here, he cries out to his colleague, and a nargile with a good mouthpiece for this little lady! Knowing Karagzs penchant for obscenity, one
can guess what he may be implying here with mouthpiece!
Rapid changes affecting the position and condition of Istanbul women,
including the Turkish female communityher newly won emancipation
each day more visible in the societyoffer humorists visions of a world
at the limit, in which sex roles are reversed. During the 1870s, humorists acted as if they believed that gender equality meant that men would
be condemned to helping with household tasks. Cartoonists of the 1920s,
however, take this one step further to amuse themselves with visions in
which the sex roles are completely reversed, women taking the mens
place and vice-versa. One finds this motif in Aydede in particular. A modern woman, elegant in her fur collar, flat-heeled shoes, and always that
switch!readies herself to go out, and is speaking to her husband. He is
31 Karagz, no. 1650, December 1923.

32Karagz, no. 1650, December 1923.
265
Figure 7.8.Women in coffeehouses.
wearing suspenders, full, pleated pants (alvar),33 slippers, and, worst of

all, he is holding a feather dusterit is clear that he is in the middle of
housework. The cartoon is entitled, Women get promoted (mazhariyet-i nisvan). Im off to the cinema, she informs her husband, When
you finish lighting the brazier, change the babys diapers, would you?34
(figure 7.9)
Along these lines, another cartoon entitled A scene from social life
depicts a woman, this time coming home from work. Her husband is
seated on a stool wearing alvar and slippers, and is busy pouring oil into
a bucket placed on a brazier. Please dont use too much, his wife interjects, I had enough trouble already borrowing a pound of the stuff from
the office boy, and I still havent heard a word about my salary!35 Here,
the Ottoman domestic world is seen in reverse: its the woman who works
outside the home, earning a living to sustain it, while the man stays at
33alvar is a traditional form of pants worn by both men and women.

34Aydede, no. 6, 19 January 1922.
35Aydede, no. 48, 15 June 1922. See this drawing also in Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul.
266
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Figure 7.9.A scene from social life.
home busying himself with kitchen work and other domestic tasks. And
to top it off, the wife-breadwinner has to borrow from...the office boy!
Coming on the heels of such a rapid liberation of women, this is not a
social fiction.
Thus women became visible, appearing in every imaginable form in
public life, including the workplace. If that were all there were to it! But
this modern woman is not satisfied with merely making appearances
in public and seeking employment outside her domestic confines. She
uncovers her physical self, casts off her veil, liberates herself. And this
revolution occurs extremely rapidly...its enough to drive the men of the
city of Istanbul to distraction. Here, too, there are plenty of comic situations to exploit.
267
If there is a topic for which the caricaturists springs of inspiration seem

inexhaustable, it is certainly that of feminine fashion. From the araf36
entirely enveloping and obfuscating the feminine form, from the pee37
(black veil) covering the face, to the most daring and revealing forms of
attire, the entire gamut, or nearly, was fair game. What attracts the caricaturist here is the idea of pushing representations of female fashion to
extremes: on the streets of Istanbul at the time, the face veil covering a
few of the more traditionalist women was doubtless as improbable as the
more insubstantial garments we are shown. The magic ingredient here is
the contrast between these two extreme types, their exaggeration pushed
to the limit.
What strikes the caricaturist as well as the reader is the rapidity
of change in the area of womens fashions. In a mere ten years or so,
womens apparel took on a dramatically new look. A cartoon in Aydede
provides, with whimsy but doubtless little exaggeration, the measure of
this transformation. Graph showing the progression in ladies feet in the
imperial territories since 1320 (that is, from 1904 to 1922) (figure 7.10).38
The graph illustrates, for a period of less than twenty years, a steady
increase in the height of heels paralleling a steady rate of increasingly bare
legs. The joke here is the scientific nature of the phenomenon: unconsciously, the reader is led to imagine the graphs curve extending into the
futurean arithmetic progression, as if the caricaturist had inklings of
the mini-skirt!
Fashion also favored lighter fabrics. It is thus that jersey, invented a few
years earlier in Europe, had considerable success among young Muslim
women. One cartoons caption is Transparency: the reason why jersey is
so popular.39 Another example from Aydede is a vignette from a fabric
shop: the merchant recommends a certain fabric to his clients, a grandmother and her granddaughter, while advising against the jersey. The latter is certainly less expensive, he explains, but it will shrink in the least
rain, and thats the end of the araf. The young woman responds by whispering furtively in her grandmothers ear, Please, granny, lets buy the
cheaper one!40 All arguments are valid for getting rid of that old sheet!
36araf is a long enveloping garment worn by women outside the house.
37Pee is a black veil worn by women over the face.
38Aydede, no. 32, 20 April 1922.
39Aydede, no. 80, 5 October 1922. This drawing and the following one are also included
in Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul.
40Aydede, no. 48, 15 June 1922.
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franois georgeon
Figure 7.10.Heels and legs.
A number of cartoons represent women in outfits each less substantial than the last. Scantily clad women with cigarette holders in their
handsone of them is stretched out lazily on a divan among cushions,
her legs propped up, thighs uncovered, nonchalantly waiting for her pedicure...Another, in high heels, with her baton and beret, a thin scarf negligently tossed around her neck and her legs mostly bare, complains of
these winter vestments: I cant wait for summer, she declares, when we
can dress more lightly! (figure 7.11). Many of these images seem to come
right out of French or English fashion magazines of the era; often its only
by the fez on the head of a father or a husbandor, more often, on that
of the suitorthat we are able to identify the cartoon as Ottoman.
The degree of nudity in which women are represented in certain of the
journals is indeed striking. One is brought to wonder whether, to some
extent, the satirical press of the period might not have played the role of
a masculine press and that, under the cover of humor, it could have been
principally conceived to provide material for male fantasies. It should not
be forgotten that it was at this point in time that we encounter the first
erotic publication of the Ottoman Empire, Bin Bir Bse.41
41This publication has been recently re-edited in Latin characters: mer Trkolu ed.,
Bin Bir Bse. 19231924 Istanbulundan Erotik bir Dergi (Istanbul: Kitap yay., 2005). See the
study by Fatma Tre in this volume.
269
Figure 7.11.I cant wait for summer.
The End of the Battle...

As we have seen, older characters, whether male or female, are represented
in a good number of satirical drawings face to face with modern women.
This was nothing new; as early as the 1870s, humorists had begun playing
on the opposition between generations to make their readers laugh. After
1919, however, the woman was more than ever the focal point of a conflict
among the younger and older generations which divided Istanbul society.
But the contest was also between conservatives and liberals, between traditionalists and the partisans of modernization. This is illustrated in a witticism on polygamy: an elderly widow spying three young, contemporary
beauties, says to herself, Its a good thing my late husband is no longer of
this world; Id have had to share him with those three! (figure 7.12).
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Two more examples from Aydede help us to grasp the dimensions of the
issue. One depicts a scene in the street: an old man, leaning on a cane and
fingering his prayer beads (tesbih) encounters a young modern woman,
her hair drawn back in a little scarf, her araf in the form of a short cape,
a mid-length skirt revealing stockinged feet in high-heeled pumps; in one
hand she holds the ever-present switch and in the other, a reticule. They
glance at each other with something beyond hostility: Will we have to
see types like that for much longer? exclaims the young woman. And to
think that Ive lived all these years only to witness such a thing! mutters
the elderly gent.42
In a second example an older man and a younger one, both wearing
fezzes, bustle about a young woman. The first one, armed with a large
needle and thread, attempts to stitch a araf onto her bodice, while the
second one, armed with an enormous pair of scissors, is busy cutting a
high hem on the young ladys skirt. The young lady doesnt know which
way to turn: One wants to cover me, the other wants to uncover me. Im in
a sorry pass, indeed!43 The interest of these two cartoons resides as much
in their captions; the first one being The two enemies (iki dman), and
the second, The battle (mcadele). Just reading the captions, brings to
mind the war that was being fought among Greeks and Turks in Anatolia.
While Anatolia was indeed embroiled in a military conflict, another one
was raging in Istanbul, and its object was women.
It was not just older people, but also the religious community which
manifested its hostility to new ways of life and to emancipated women.
These, too, are often enough caricaturists targets. One is a cartoon captioned
Life on Mars in which an astronomer wearing a turban peers through a
spyglass, and what does he see? A couple embracing! What! So they have
them there as well! he cries out, horrified.44 Another hodja accompanies
his wife, veiled and enswathed from head to foot. Bravo, my good woman.
Now thats how a Muslim women should go out into the street!45
In fact, even the veiled woman is no longer any sort of guarantee. A
very fine drawing by Mnif Fehim published in Aydede illustrates just this:
a woman covered from head to foot in a long araf and a thick pee
42Aydede, no. 15, 20 February 1922. This drawing along with the subsequent one may
be seen in Zafer Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul.
43Aydede, no. 56, 13 July 1922.
44Guguk, 28 August 1924.
45Kelebek, no. 41, January 1924. The caption continued with this remark: Since daring
drawings can incur penalties, this is how the caricaturists of Kelebek will portray women
from now on.
271
Figure 7.12.The widow...
accompanies her husband, a somewhat grim-looking bearded man, in

the street.46 The couple is followed by a dandy in full courtship mode.
In one hand he elegantly holds a small bag and in the other, a thin stick.
The veiled woman has pulled back a part of her skirt, revealing to him
high heels, stockings, and a garter. To the latter she has attached a note:
Meet me tomorrow, same place! Mnif Fehim adds to the humor of the
scene with a line not identical to, but certainly in the spirit of, a famous
one from Molires Ecole des femmes: A locked cage is no guarantee of
virtue (kilitli kafes iffete, ara tekeffl etmez).
46Aydede, no. 62, 3 August 1922. Reproduced in Toprak, Mtareke Dneminde Istanbul.
272
franois georgeon
Figure 7.13.Hrriyet Abidesi (Monument to Freedom).
Finally, a cartoon entitled Hurriyet abidesi [Monument to freedom]

(figure 7.13) deserves attention. In the foreground is a woman with all
the trappings of modernity: short hair held back with a scarf, lipstick, a
low-cut bodice, a short skirt blowing open to reveal uncovered knees, legs
without stockings, high-heeled slippers, and the familiar switch or wand.
The womans freedom is conveyed not only by the way she is dressed, but
also by her attitude and poise; this is no longer a stiff female figure held
in some sense rigid by the veil or araf, but a woman with a supple body,
free in her movements; with one hand on her hip, she almost seems to
273
be dancing. In the background, we see the monument to liberty (bide-i

Hrriyet) which symbolizes the victory of the Young Turks over the reactionary Otuzbir Mart Vakas47 (March 31 Incident) movement, a monument which was erected on Hrriyet Tepesi (Hill of freedom) in ili and
inaugurated on 23 July 1911 to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the
Young Turk revolution. The symbol of liberty is thus no longer the barrel
of a cannon pointing skywards, but the twentieth-century woman.
What can we learn from the study of the satirical press about the situation of women on the eve of the Kemalist reforms? One should first note
that this study has deliberately chosen not to mention another female
figure promoted by certain titles in the humoristic press: that of the patriotic woman, or the woman as a symbol of the Turkish homeland rising up
victorious on the battlefields of western Anatolia. A number of magazines,
such as the openly pro-Kemalist Gleryz, feature many of these images
which exalt a simultaneous representation of the Turkish woman and the
homeland. However, these images have as their starting point the political
symbolism and propaganda of the period, with no comic or satirical elements. For this reason, they have not been discussed here.
Analysis of the cartoons and satirical press of the period leading up to
the Kemalist reforms makes evident the important place that the debate
on the emancipation and freedom of women occupied in public opinion,
in addition to the stances taken by most of the members of the press in
this area. Such analysis thus furthers our understanding of gender history
of the period and shows that women became the center of attention and
of societys gaze. They became a social topic which is no longer taboo and
no longer subjected to censorship, be it by the Allies, by the government
in Istanbul or even later by the government in Ankara following the delivery of Istanbul from the occupying Entente armies. With the exception
of the more traditional papers (such as Karagz) and the more political
papers (such as Gleryz and Diken, which portray the woman as a model
of patriotism), we could say that the woman is the dominant theme of
the satirical press. For the humorists of the time, the woman is a popular
subject which allows them to give free rein to their fantasies and imagination. Glancing through these reviews and comparing them with those of
the post-1908 revolution period, one gets some idea of the magnitude of
the Istanbul publics near obsession with the figure of the woman.
47The March 31 Incident involved an uprising by members of the more strictly religious
community against the Young Turks.
274
franois georgeon
In the satirical press that we have reviewed, the female figure is most
often portrayed as young and emancipated; moreover, the trend toward
emancipation and modernization is no longer restricted to the foreigner
in Pera or to the Levantine, the Jew, the Greek or the Armenianit is
now of relevance to the Turkish and Muslim woman. Thus, in the Turkish/
Muslim press, the modern woman can also be a Turkish/Muslim woman.
And as we have seen, with respect to the Turkish/Muslim woman, the
move to emancipation and modernization was an extremely rapid one:
the war years (Balkan wars, World War I and II) thus came to an end in a
veritable restructuring of the social order in Istanbul.
Illustrations in the satirical press show us a society in which mixing
of the sexes is becoming the order of the day: it is gaining ground on the
streets (more regularly frequented by women), on public transport (men
and women are no longer segregated), and in most public places. To some
extent, the humorists simply confirm what we know from other sources
such as photographs, memoirs, and the regular press of the period. But
they do more than bear witness; they take advantage of this new situation,
with its rich potential for misunderstanding and unexpected or comical
reactions, to make us laugh. Is it, then, really so absurd to imagine women
in even the most masculine preserves of Ottoman culture such as coffee
houses, or in strictly male roles such as those of officer or policeman?
A salient humorous device used by caricaturists and illustrators is the
representation of a hyper-westernized or hyper-modern woman type, borrowed from fashionable European and American magazines. Thus we see
the boyish, liberated woman of 1920s France or her flapper counterpart
in the United States, with short hair and lightweight outfits, smoking and
driving sports cars and in every way conducting herself as an equal to
men, making her entrance into the Istanbul press. It is doubtful that there
was much empirical precedent for such female figures in the Ottoman
capital, but no matter: the image serves as a kind of foil or safety rail
for a society which, despite its aspirations to change, was hardly ready to
cast off its values and moral reserve; it marks a limit which one would be
ill-advised to reach. As erif Mardin points out in his well-known article
on the super-westernization of Ottoman society, this is a theme which
had existed for some time in Ottoman culture:48 in the first novels it was
48erif Mardin, Super-Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
Quarter of the Nineteenth Century in Turkey, Geographic and Social Perspectives, ed. Peter
Benedict, Erol Tmertekin, and Fatma Mansur (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), 403446.
275
embodied in the ultra-westernized man, the snob, the dandy, the character of k Bey (Mr. Chic). In the satirical press of 19191924, however,
we see that from now on the woman was also used as a symbol of this
hyper-westernization.
The satirical press allows us to understand the radical effect that the
emergence (or, one might say, the explosion) of the feminine figure in
the space of a few years had on the average Turkish-Muslim man in the
street. The woman is an object of complete fascination, but also constitutes a threat insofar as she reminds us that, at the rate things are changing, she may soon become mans rival.
In generaland without considering in more detail the subtle differences among the various magazines and newspapers, differences that
would emerge from a more in-depth studyit can be argued that the
satirical press defends a moderate version of womens liberation: it is
clearly hostile to the overtly traditional woman, but on the other hand
does not shy away from ridiculing the extremes to which modernization
and womens liberation could lead. It therefore adopts a middle road. If
we suppose that the satirical press reflects the opinion of the average
Turk, we can perhaps conclude that public opinion in Istanbul appeared
to be generally favorable to the emancipation of women. In summary,
then, at least in this area, it could be said that urban society looked forward to the Kemalist reforms.
276
franois georgeon
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Mardin, erif. Super-Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
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Part five
Dilemmas of Nationalism:
Debating Modernity, Identity, and Womens Agency
chapter twelve
From a Critique of the Orient to a Critique of Modernity:

A Greek-Ottoman-American Writer, Demetra Vaka
(18771946)
Duygu Kksal
Thinking about empires invites thinking about cosmopolitanism. Yet the
end of empires has also necessitated thinking about cultural differences,
patriotisms, and nationalist strife. The late Ottoman Empire is no exception, with its overarching cosmopolitan culture that gradually devolved
into clashing nationalisms. Demetra Vaka was a member of Istanbuls
Greek community during the Empires age of dissolution. She reflected
the mindset of the well-educated, upper middle-class Greek community,
even while her educational background was exceptional among both
women of her own community and those of other Muslim and nonMuslim communities.
At eighteen (1895), Vaka traveled to America as governess of the children of the Greek-Ottoman consul in New York, and stayed there to earn
her living as a journalist and teacher. She became a member of the growing Greek-American community and through marriage to an American
writer, Kenneth Brown, entered literary circles in America and started to
write in English.
Vakas writings range from fiction to autobiography and journalistic
essays. Her most interesting work, that devoted to her childhood and
youthful memories of Istanbul, comes close to autobiographical fiction.
Among these, A Child of the Orient (1914) is the story of her bildung, and
Bribed to Be Born (1951) is a novella largely inspired by familial relations
and childhood memories. A second group of writings, in a journalistic
vein, could be classified as travel notes; these narrate observations and
acquaintances made on later visits to Istanbul in 1901 (Haremlik, 1909)
and 1921 (The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul, 1923). A third group of books are
popular novels or romances, mostly employing an Oriental setting and
Oriental characters, such as In the Shadow of Islam (1911). Finally, in addition to fiction, Vaka produced numerous periodical articles and newspaper essays on international politics of the Balkans and Europe. Works
such as The German Intrigue (1918) and the Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul
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(1923) demonstrate a deep interest in the international politics and diplomacy of her time.1
Ussama Makdisi states that in the nineteenth century, while Ottoman
officials tried to make the case for an independent reformation of the
Empire, directed from within, a majority of European authors, travelers,
politicians, and missionaries insisted on its inevitable subordination to
a European civilizing mission.2 From this point of view Vakas writing
can without much doubt be viewed as Orientalist, due to her unambiguous differentiation between the categories of West and East, which she
somewhat mechanically translates into the cross and the crescent. She
typically narrates the Orient, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
Ottoman society, as seen through the eyes of an Ottoman-Greek-American
woman, to Western reading audiences. In broad strokes, her Orientalism
takes for granted an Asiatic, Muslim East, on the one hand, and a civilized,
superior West, on the other. Her own Greek-Ottoman community as well
as the Greeks of independent Greece unquestionably belong to the civilized West, embodied in the nations of Europe. Later in her life, the main
bearer of this civilization becomes America.
A closer look into Vakas writings reveals, however, that her works differ from the general body of Orientalist literature in that the author presents herself to the Western reader as an Ottoman woman from Istanbul.
In spite of all the distance she takes from that society when writing about
Muslim women, the Ottoman imperial system, and the Islamic Orient,
she cannot help but proffer an insiders insight into the everyday life of
Istanbul, including the lives of Muslim women.
Reina Lewis notes the difficult position Vaka finds herself in while
performing both Occidental and Oriental identifications.3 Indeed, Vaka
intentionally and painstakingly built her own Oriental identity in an
effort to distinguish herself from other Orientalist writers. The underlying
message in her texts is that her account of the Orient is truer, or closer to
1 Vaka wrote for mainstream American magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly and
Colliers in addition to a number of Greek-American journals. She published twelve books
of fiction and non-fiction. Demetra Vaka (Mrs. Kenneth Brown), In the Heart of the German
Intrigue (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918) and The Unveiled Ladies
of Stamboul (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923).
2Ussama Makdisi, Mapping the Orient, Non-western Modernization, Imperialism,
and the End of Romanticism, in Nineteenth Century Geographies, ed. H. Michie and
R. R. Thomas (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 40.
3Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 164.
from a critique of the orient to a critique of modernity 283
truth, because she was born in an Oriental geography and closely interacted with Oriental people, she possesses firsthand knowledge of this
world. Her intimacy with the Orient, she hoped, would distinguish her
work from the majority of outsiders looking in, yet her writings should
nevertheless fulfill the expectations of Western popular reading audiences
seeking Orientalist romance. In this vein, she is not satisfied with simply depicting Muslim women in their harem or konak (well-to-do family
home) surroundings, but also tells their stories, mostly related to her by
those women, as one accepted into their intimate worlds. Thus as Lewis
puts it, writing for Western audiences, Vaka repeatedly invokes orientalist stereotypes and challenges them.4
Vaka had been living in America as a married woman for almost twenty
years, and was working as a journalist specializing in Near East and Balkan diplomacy when she began writing her autobiographical novel,
A Child of the Orient. In the work, she summons to life Orientalist stereotypes drawn from her childhood. Here Turks are described as an Asiatic
people associated with slavery, despotism, military aggression, polygamy,
the suppression of women, indulgence of the senses, etc. As the chapters
unfold, however, these negative traits ascribed to Turks are often counterbalanced by positive characteristics as such as naturalness, delicacy,
emotionalism, and hospitality, as reportedly witnessed by Vaka in her
everyday contacts with Muslim people. Each chapter begins with a depiction of the insurmountable cultural difference between the Greek subjects
of the Empire and the Muslim ruling group, to end with a reassessment
of the events and thoughts of her earlier years and a re-evaluation of her
youthful convictions. Written in 1914, this book reflects Vakas questions
about not only her early stereotypes of Muslims, but also the larger concepts of the West and Western civilization.
Vakas writings are her responses to this complex and volatile environment, across geographical and cultural boundaries. As Kathlene Postma
aptly states, a number of forces influenced Vaka and her readers: a vigorous American expansionism, the growing population of educated women
and the role of the feminist movement in the United States, American
philantrophic involvement with Christian minorities living in the Ottoman Empire, and Vakas own Greek-American background...5 This
4Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, 164.

5Kathlene Postma, American Women Readers Encounter Turkey in the Shadow of
Popular Romance, Journal of American Studies of Turkey 9 (1999), 71.
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paper pursues the argument that, writing for an American audience, Vaka
was responding to ideological currents in her American environment.
I argue that while presenting the Orient to Western (American) audiences,
in underlining her differences from the Victorian-Edwardian middle-class
worldview, she clearly diverges from mainstream bourgeois values both as
a writer and as a woman.
In what follows I describe how Vaka was born into and raised in a
Victorian-bourgeois cultural milieu and discuss how this affects her early
perceptions of the Orient. Yet Vaka later revolted against her own bourgeois background ultimately to find herself in a modernism that questioned Western modernity itself.
European Enlightenment for a Greek-Ottoman Girl
Greek women both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, as educated
women elsewhere, were influenced by the liberal currents spread by
European Enlightenment thinkers. These thinkers introduced the notion
of womens equality and sparked debates about womens nature and
their subordinate status. Yet despite its liberationist and anti-despotic
messages, Enlightenment thinking still bore patriarchal strains within it.
It is now understood that even for liberal philosophers like John Locke
and Jean Jacques Rousseau, equality of the sexes was little more than an
embryonic, abstract assumption while the good citizen or rational individual of the liberal ideal were unexceptionally conceptualized as male
(and western). Women were not imagined as citizens as much as republican mothers who would play important but supplementary and instrumental roles in the new society.
Modern Greek thinking also inherited these contradictory assumptions
about womens status.6 Modesty, chastity, and virtue were still the predestined qualities sought in women not only by prominent male figures
of the neo-Hellenic Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century like
Rigas Velestinlis and Adamantios Korais, but also according to the newly
emerging Greek women writers of the nineteenth century.7 Paschalis
6Paschalis Kitromilides, The Enlightenment and Womanhood: Cultural Change and
the Politics of Exclusion, in Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy, ed. Paschalis Kitromilides (Hampshire, UK: Variorium, 1994), 3961.
7Rigas Velestinlis (Ferais) and Adamantios Korais were major figures of the Greek
Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century and founders of Greek nationalism. Both
were greatly influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution. Rigas (17481789) was one
Kitromilides characterizes ideal womanhood in terms of the supportive

wife and virtuous mother not only for the aristocratic Phanariot women
of Istanbul but also for women of the Greek merchant, professional, and
intellectual classes.8 The key to enlightened womanhood was education,
which should develop proper reasoning and control over the senses and
desires, thus keeping vanity and indulgence at bay. Greek Enlightenment
thinking among male and female writers alike clearly inherited this model
yet went further to stress presumably classic virtues such as austerity,
modesty, and temperance.
Demetra Vaka was born in 1877 to a Greek Ottoman family on one of the
Princes Islands in the Marmara Sea and was exposed to Greek Enlightenment values, especially through her education, both formal and informal.
Vaka received classical training in ancient Greek and Latin as well as in
French and later pursued these studies in Paris; her studies came to an
end at the death of her father. Her writing career subsequently began in
America, where she became a renowned novelist and journalist, first of
the Greek-American community and later of American modernist literary
circles. Her writing frequently stresses the importance of her educational
formation. Devouring books and valuing reading above all else, Vaka well
exemplifies reading culture as a marker of cultivation in the nineteenth
century.
The Enlightenment values that Vaka acquired through reading found
a living counterpart in the Greek bourgeois culture of the late Ottoman
Empire. She also inherited much of the worldview of what is termed the
Greek Enlightenment, that is, Greek nationalist ideas, through relatives.
In her novel, Bribed to be Born, which Kenneth Brown reported to have
found among her papers and published posthumously in 1951, Vaka recalls
a great aunt of Phanariot background.9 The novel describes the schools,
charitable foundations, and philantrophic activities of the Phanariot
community along with its daily life organized around the Patriarchate
during the period of the 1908 revolution. This community is portrayed
of the heroes of the Greek War of Independence and part of the Greek uprising against the
Ottoman state. He emphasized the demotiki or vernacular version of the Greek language.
Korais (17481832), who was born in Izmir and studied and lived in Paris during the French
Revolution, is considered the father of modern Greek literature. He contributed to the
Greek War of Independence and emphasized the more classical (purist) version of Greek
language called Katharevusa.
8Kitromilides, 4647.
9Demetra Vaka (Mrs. Kenneth Brown), Bribed to be Born (New York: Exposition Press,
1951).
286
duygu kksal
as living completely segregated from the Muslims, with its own conventions, culture, and social rules. Though much more conservative than the
liberal Greek bourgeoisie of the time, Phanariots, too, according to Vaka,
inherited Enlightenment values and gradually accepted the bourgeois
mentality and the changes in Greek womens lives brought by economic
necessity, among other reasons. In descriptions of the Phanariot family,
the emphasis on rationality, discipline, education, and philantrophy is
much in evidence.
Her father was a bureaucrat at the Sublime Porte, so Vakas family
also partook of the broader cosmopolitan culture of the Ottoman court.
Vakas ideas about women, family, marriage, and her own bildung should
be understood against the diverse components of this intellectual and cultural background. On the one hand she was exposed to Greek nationalist
ideas emanating from her family and community, on the other, she spent
long hours with Muslim girls and boys of her own age, some of whom she
befriended for a lifetime. Through these acquaintances she had access to
the harems and households of Muslim families, experiences which did
much to shape her future writing career.
In the following section, I trace the influence of middle-class ideology
on Vakas ideas. Born into a world where bourgeois mentality and values
reigned supreme, Vaka not surprisingly internalized them. However, as
she grew older, Vaka strove to shed this worldview in favor of an emancipated New Womanhood.
Victorian Middle-class Ideology and Vakas Orient
The writings of English women travelers in the Middle East show how
Victorian middle-class values were projected onto the Oriental harem.10
In contrast to a group of earlier travel writings deploring Oriental womens subjection, a remarkable number of nineteenth-century female travel
writers ascribed Victorian moral values to the Oriental harem and found
parallels with the bourgeois private sphere. For this group, the harem was
a space that protected women not only from outside dangers but also
from the husbands unnecessary intrusions and interventions. The idea
of separate spheres (public vs. private) found its ultimate model in the
harem which, according to these Victorian commentators, not only created
10Billie Melman, Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 17181918 (London: Macmillan Press, 1995).
separate womens quarters but also empowered the women within them.
That is, neither the harem nor the veil meant mere subjection, rather they
symbolized womens autonomy, or freedom from sexual exploitation.11
Demetra Vakas accounts of Muslim womens lives and customary
harem practices reveal mixed feelings toward some traditional aspects of
Ottoman society, reflecting in turn disdain and admiration, even a kind of
fascination. In the autobiographical accounts of her childhood and youth
in Istanbul, Vaka experiences the harems and traditional Muslim households of her friends as places where she can take refuge from her studies
and other obligations. Unambiguously her descriptions bear the stamp of
her Victorian bourgeois values.
It was a patriarchal home, this first harem I visited...There was little furniture in the house, just rugs and hard sofas, and small tables upon which
there were always sorbets or sweets, and cushions of all colours were piled
up on the rugs where babies or grown-ups were always lying slumbering...(T)he whole place seemed to me like a play-box, transformed into a
fairy house, from which discipline, like a wicked fairy was banished...The
amount they permitted me to eat was incredible...Djimlah and I practically owned the house. We slid on the banisters; we climbed on the backs
of the slaves...and we ate candy whenever and in whatever quantities we
pleased...No one said No to us...12
In Vakas accounts the harems and konaks are described as a remote and
utterly strange world. Exoticized and stylized, for the most part Vakas
harems conform to Orientalist depictions from nineteenth-century travel
writing. The crucial revelation for her is the atmosphere of these upperclass households, which defies the Victorian emphasis on order, hierarchy, and discipline. The upper-class Ottoman harem was like a paradise
for little Demetra where she could freely gratify otherwise strictly curbed
childhood desires.
In my home there were duties for me to be learned, remembered, and to be
guided by. The words duty and obligation played a great role in my Greek
home, and these two words so stern, so irreconcilable with pleasure were
absent from the Turkish homes...In Turkish homes there was no history to
be learned. All they seemed to know was that they were a great conquering
race...13
11 Billie Melman, Womens Orients, 121.

12Demetra Vaka, A Child of the Orient (London: John Lane, 1914), 3031.
13Demetra Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 3334.
288
duygu kksal
The wives, the children and the slaves, according to Vaka, lived in an environment of indulgence where senses, desires, and needs were unabashedly expressed. Polygamous marriages and extended households, where
wives were dedicated to their husbands and childrenwhere passionate
devotion was valued above all elsebewildered Vaka. Yet her Victorian
upbringing and conscience weighed heavily nonetheless, imparting a perhaps inevitable sense of superiority and pride in her own culture.
I came to them ready to enjoy them...and yet as years went by, deep down
in my heart I felt glad to be a Greek child, even though I belonged to the
conquered race; and I began to return to my home with greater satisfaction than I had at first, and to put into my studies a fervour and willingness which might have been less, had I not been a visitor to these Turkish
households.14
In Haremlik (1909), as well, women in the harem are admired and disparaged in turn. Vaka reproduces the gaze of the typical Western male of
Orientalist travel writing while describing the beautiful Oriental womens
physical traits.15 At the same time, contrary to popular Western expectations, she finds the women strong willed, intelligent, and witty. After her
first visit to a harem just back from America, she writes,
[The women were] not very different by nature from many commonplace
American friends I have, whose lives are spent with dressmakers, manicures, masseuses and in various frivolous pursuits...Except for the absence
of men I might have been visiting an American household. What difference
existed was to the advantage of the Turkish girls. They were entirely natural and spontaneous. They did not pretend to be anything that they were
not...There was no unwholesome introspectionthat horrible attribute
of the average half-educated European and American women. They never
dreamed of setting the world aright...16
Vaka realized that even, and perhaps because, segregated as they were,
these women nonetheless exercised agency in a private sphere that might
be considered a workable alternative to that of Western bourgeois society.
Yet Victorian bourgeois morality always haunted Vaka, pushing her to write
with always a mix of sympathy and contempt for the Muslim women.
...[C]uriously, too, as I grew older, I liked the Turks more and more, though
in my liking there was a certain amount of protective feeling, such as one
14Demetra Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 35.
15Lewis, Rethinking Oreintalism, especially 146177.
16Demetra Vaka, Haremlik: Some Pages from the Life of Turkish Women (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias Press, 2005 [1909]), 2829.

might feel for wayward children, rather than for equals...I learned to see
what was noble, charming, and poetical in their lives; but I also became
conscious that in spite of the faults of my race, in spite of the limitations
of our religion, our civilization was better than theirs, because it contained
such words as discipline, duty, and obligation.17
Vaka found out that her childhood friend, Djimlah, now the third wife
of an Ottoman pasha, lived in a harem. On a visit, Vaka asked her the
secret of the change which had made the bold and self-reliant Djimlah an
entirely new person, a passionate and obedient wife. Djimlah replied:
You dear little crest of the wave, because you have been studying and running around the world, improving and enlarging your mind, you think
you know something. Why, you are as ignorant as my baby...No, little
mountain spring, books will never teach you life as a man and a child will.
Books may feed your mind, but your heart will be starvedand human
beings must live through the heart.18
Vaka confessed to a transitory empathy: She had moved me: I believed

her; but habit was stronger than momentary emotion.19
Vakas writings on Oriental life thus waver between a bourgeois moralistic stance valuing rationality, order, discipline, and work, and a romantic fondness for the childlike qualities, the indulgence, sensuality, and
disorderliness in non-western lives. This tension makes Vakas writing
more appealing and lends it a refreshingly sincere literary quality. In fact,
removing this tension, which she invokes as the existential dichotomy of
her personal life, might leave little more than a dry and callous criticism
of the Orient and Ottoman society. Similar dichotomies may be detected
in other travel writing on the Orient in varying degrees, yet nowhere is
it as deeply felt and as personalized as in Vakas case. Admiration and
derision, possessiveness as well as sarcasm, all together render her works
captivating, intriguing.
Vakas Revolt
Vakas bourgeois mentality crumbled when she emigrated to America in
an effort to prove that she could stand on her own two feet in this brave
new world, this land of opportunity. She was unaware that difficult years
17Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 35.

18Vaka, Haremlik, 82.
19Vaka, Haremlik, 82.
290
duygu kksal
among the toiling masses of the new world awaited her. Departing for
and settling in America should be read as an act of defiance against the
Old World in favor of the New. She wrote:
Even before I was fifteen I was quietly planning to leave Turkey, to go and
seek what fortunes awaited me in new and strange landsa course which
my imagination painted very attractively. America beckoned me more
than any other country, perhaps because I thought there were no classes
there, and that everyone met on an equal footing and worked out his own
salvation.20
Indeed, Vaka escaped not only the stifling social environment of the late
Ottoman Empire but also the conservative bourgeois morality of her own
Greek-Ottoman community. Her act, which Vaka recounts as a deeply
individual choice, was a radical move even for enlightened women of her
milieu. Among the reasons for her departure, she noted: Accustomed to
having my own way, I was convinced that the supreme duty of every individual is to lead his life as he chose. I do not think so any longer.21
Vakas persistent emphasis on individualism during and following her
departure for the United States should be read as a revolt against both
traditional imperial culture and the bourgeois conservatism of the Greek
community. Yet Yiorgos D. Kalogeras notes that while Vaka herself, as
author, dismisses the Victorian/Edwardian ethos of womanhood, Vaka
the narrator judges Ottoman Muslim women through this same bourgeois
mentality.22 As Kalogeras explains, Vakas own life, as an individual and
a professional woman, certainly defied the middle-class patriarchal ethos
which was dominant in Europe and America of that era.23 She wrote:
I was at last living the life I had dreamed about. I was one of the great
mass toilers of the earth...24 In her sensitive analysis of Vakas popular/Orientalist novel In the Shadow of Islam, Kathlene Postma notes the
conflicted position of Millicent, the young American female protagonist
visiting Istanbul, one reflecting the transitional stage of middle and uppermiddle class American women after the turn of the century and before
World War I.25 Postma shows how Millicent bore both the elitist world20Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 253.
21 Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 254.
22Yiorgos D. Kalogeras, Contested, Familiar and Exotic Spaces: The Politics of Demetra Vaka Browns Identity, Introduction to the reprint, Haremlik, ix.
23Yiorgos D. Kalogeras, Contested, Familiar and Exotic Spaces: The Politics of Demetra Vaka Browns Identity, ix.
25Postma, American Women Readers, 75.
from a critique of the orient to a critique of modernity
291
view of an educated, middle-class young American woman in a quest to

enlighten and serve the Turkish people, and the womanly passions and
desire to belong to a man, Orhan Bey, a young Turk of royal distinction.
Vakas feminism basically corresponded to the ideal of the New
Woman that was beginning to emerge in the European and American
metropole toward the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At
least for a certain period, Vaka appears to have envisioned herself part
of this trend, to the extent that her revolt against the Victorian bourgeois
morality of her day closely paralleled the concerns of the growing feminist
movement in Europe and America where she arrived as a young woman.
The American feminism of the early twentieth century, which endorsed
womens public usefulness, organizational capacities, and services to society while also demanding equal rights, has been much studied. Excluded
from national politics, feminists became very active in local politics, drawing on experience they gained from charitable activities and community
work.26 In time, Vakas feminism came to echo this model, acquiring a collectivist tone and heavily emphasizing philanthrophy, community service,
and womens public and political activities.
A second explanation for Vakas defiance of the Victorian sensibilities
of rationality, discipline, and order relates to her literary concerns. Vaka
always admired and longed to take part in the American modernist literary adventure. Eleftheria Arapoglou argues that Vakas travel writing
allows her to embrace and exemplify fluidity of identity: a necessary precondition of the modernist tradition within which she operates.27 Thus
Vaka became the prototypical modernist subject: a traveling flaneur
who moved about unnoticed in anonymity, observing and internalizing
space.28 Literary modernism, we are told, identifies not only with the
fragmented, liminal individual but also with the feelings of loss, ambivalence, and alienation that are inevitable results of the material conditions
26Mary P. Ryan, Gender and Public Access: Womens Politics in Nineteenth-century
America, in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1996), 259288; Carol Smart, Gender and the Public/Private Dichotomy in American
Revolutionary Thought, in Regulating Womanhood, Historical Essays on Marriage, Motherhood and Sexuality, ed. Carol Smart (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 154166. For
the working conditions of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century women
in America, see Mary Ryan, Womanhood in America: From Colonial Times to the Present
(New York: Franklin Watts, 1983), especially The Breadgivers: Immigrants and Reformers:
18651920, 167216.
27Eleftheria Arapoglou, Vaka Brown: The Historicized Geography/Geographic History
of an Immigrant, Journal of Modern Hellenism 2122 (20042005), 86.
28Eleftheria Arapoglou, Vaka Brown, 87.
292
duygu kksal
of modernity. I tend to think that Vakas sensitivities as a literary modernist led her to champion but also to question modernity. Musing on her
own fragmented self, having crossed geographical and cultural boundaries, Vaka discovered within herself the ultimate modern personality. It is a
pity that, as a literary figure, she was unable to remove her gaze from the
Orient and develop her modernist perspective more fully. If this perspective included openness to change, a sense of mobility, and of loosening
all prior bonds, Vaka doubtless exemplified it. Yet artistic modernism also
means a delving into the labyrinths of alienation and expressing the fracturing of the self brought by the experience of modernity. In this sense, it
is also a questioning of modern existence itself.
Vakas Critique of Modernity
Vaka enjoyed the freedom, vitality, and buoyancy that America offered
but was also driven to deepen her understanding of freedom. Her search
for happiness led her to question Western modernity, a questioning whose
signs are already visible in Haremlik. Insisting that, while in transformation, the Orient should nevertheless resist mimicking the Western model
of development, she called on Muslim women not to imitate Western
feminists in their demands for rights. Her conservative impulse cannot be
explained only in terms of Vakas career investment in Orientalism or in
an Orient she does not want to see disappear as a result of westernization.
Her advice to Muslim women and all other reformers in Ottoman society
is that change be brought about gradually and without denigrating, belittling, or denying the achievements of the Ottoman imperial system.29
The ideal of Western civilization that Vaka, perhaps somewhat unconsciously, brought into play in most of her Orientalist novels seems to
have eroded significantly by the time she wrote A Child of the Orient. Her
confidence in the Western individual, free to choose and to act without
restrictions, and the ideals in whose name she had settled in America, seem
to have been shaken. Faced with the difficulties of adapting to an early
twentieth-century America of a fierce and unbridled capitalism, terms like
29This cautious attitude in the face of Western modernity is typical of a number of late
Ottoman intellectuals and modernizers such as Ziya Gkalp, as well as among prominent
figures of the Greek enlightenment such as Ion Dragoumis (18781920). See Gregory Jusdanis, Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture: Inventing National Literature (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2003), especially 113121, for critiques of modernity in modern Greek thought.
collectivity, altruism, and the toiling masses of the world entered Vakas
vocabularyyet in parallel with a growing nostalgia for the protective
domesticity of the Ottoman society of her youth.
After spending an entire night in the streets of New York, strolling on
Broadway and wandering through Harlem, Vaka wrote the following:
Before this year I used to think that to be absolutely free, to go and come
as I pleased, would be the acme of happiness; to have no one to question
my actions, to be responsible only to myself would be the koryphe (peak)
of freedom. Yet this year, when I was free to go and come as I pleased, and
had no one to give any account of my actions, I found to be the most desolate of my life, and my freedom weighed on me far more than ever restraint
at home.30
Two further realizations shake Vakas confidence in Western modernity.

One is that Western civilization cannot really be upheld as an ideal when
viewed as the Western imperialist hegemon and the superpowers of her
day. She is sadly disappointed not only in the interest-seeking superpowers, but also in Greece, which she sees as acting as a pawn in the superpowers games. In the Heart of German Intrigue and The Unveiled Ladies of
Istanbul in particular reflect her frustration with imperialist ambitions in
the Balkans and the Near East.
Vakas West was never exactly a fait accompli, uncontested and unchallenged. Yet as she grew older, becoming involved as a writer in international affairs and diplomacy, her ideal of the civilized West appears to
fall into fragments. By World War I and the Allied occupation of Istanbul,
she begins to speak with bitter sarcasm of the European powers strategic
interests in the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Middle East. Western modernity, the culmination of Western civilization, has begun to disturb and
disappoint her:
I wonder if there will ever come a time when...[little children] will be
brought up in the teaching that there is but one God and one nationality...I wonder whether we shall ever be trained so as not to care whether
our particular nation is big and powerful, but whether every human being
is receiving the chance to develop the best in him, in order that he may give
that best to the rest of the world.31
Her aspirations for a higher humanism led Vaka to embrace the American
dream; its progressive spirit, democratic ideals, and social accountability

31 Vaka, A Child of the Orient, 6768.
294
duygu kksal
were to be the panacea for ruthless capitalism, poverty, and nationalistic strife. Ironically, Vaka escaped the late Ottoman imperial/hegemonic
model to embrace the American melting pot and its model of assimilative
universalism. It is from within this American context that she persists in
asking vital questions about feminism, human existence, and modernity:
I realized that I was only one of the victims of that terrible disease, Restlessness, which has taken hold of women the world over. We are dissatisfied
with the lines of development and action imposed by our sex...The terrible fact remains that in our discontent we rush from this to that remedy,
hoping vainly that each new one will lead to peace. We have even come to
believe that political equality is the remedy for our disease. Very soon, let
us hope, we shall possess that nostrum, too. When we find ourselves politically equal with men, and on a par with them in the area of economics, we
may discover that these extraneous changes are not what we need. We may
then...see whether, as women, we have really done the best we could by
ourselves...and devote ourselves to developing that greater efficiency in
ourselves along our own lines, which is the only remedy for our present
restlessness.32
It is claimed that [i]n Freuds Vienna, it was hysteria, in the modern world
alienation is the most prevalent problematic state experienced.33 Indeed,
this paper tries to show that Demetra Vaka strove to distance herself not
only from the limitations of Ottoman society but also from the bondage
of her Victorian worldthe world of hysteria in Freuds termsseeking
self-actualization in America. In this new land she sought freedom, liberty, and individuality. Vaka found all these things, but then came to
realize that happiness included much else as well, such as interpersonal
connectedness, spontaneity, and care for others. A constant vacillation
between the drive for individuality and the longing for connectedness is
the uneasy predicament of the modern individual. At first rejoicing in her
individuality and self-sufficiency, Vaka ultimately found herself experiencing the tragedy of the modern human being, the anguish and sense of
loss accompanying freedom in the modern state of mind.
Vakas intellectual and personal trajectory, her critique of the Orient
entwined in a feminist revolt which culminated in a critique of modernity, evinces the dilemmas of the modern self, experienced perhaps more
acutely by women than by men.

33Emmanuel Hammer, Reaching the Affect, Style in Psychodynamic Therapies (New
Jersey and London: Jason Aronson Inc., 1990), 3.

Bibliography
Arapoglou, Eleftheria. Vaka Brown: The Historicized Geography/Geographic History of an

Immigrant. Journal of Modern Hellenism, 2122 (20042005), 83103.
Hammer, Emmanuel. Reaching the Affect, Style in Psychodynamic Therapies. New Jersey
and London: Jason Aronson Inc., 1990.
Jusdanis, Gregory. Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture: Inventing National Literature.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
Kalogeras, Yiorgos D. Contested, Familiar and Exotic Spaces: The Politics of Demetra Vaka
Browns Identity, Introduction to the reprint, Haremlik: Some Pages from the Life of
Turkish Women, by Demetra Vaka, vxxv. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005 [1909].
Kitromilides, Paschalis. The Enlightenment and Womanhood: Cultural Change and the
Politics of Exclusion, in Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy, edited by Paschalis
Kitromilides, 3961. Hampshire, UK: Variorium, 1994.
Lewis, Reina. Rethinking Orientalism, Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
Makdisi, Ussama. Mapping the Orient, Non-western Modernization, Imperialism, and
the End of Romanticism, in Nineteenth Century Geographies, edited by H. Michie and
R. R. Thomas, 4053. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
Melman, Billie. Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 17181918. 2nd edition. London: Macmillan Press, 1995.
Postma, Kathlene. American Women Readers Encounter Turkey in the Shadow of Popular
Romance. Journal of American Studies of Turkey 9 (1999), 7182.
Ryan, Mary P. Gender and Public Access: Womens Politics in Nineteenth-century America, in Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun, 259288. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1996.
. Womanhood in America: From Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Franklin
Watts, 1983.
Smart, Carol. Gender and the Public/Private Dichotomy in American Revolutionary
Thought, in Regulating Womanhood, Historical Essays on Marriage, Motherhood and
Sexuality, edited by Carol Smart, 154166. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Vaka, Demetra (Mrs. Kenneth Brown). Bribed to be Born. New York: Exposition Press,
1951.
. A Child of the Orient. London: John Lane, 1914.
. Haremlik: Some Pages from the Life of Turkish Women. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press,
2005 [1909].
. In the Heart of the German Intrigue. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918.
. The Unveiled Ladies of Stamboul. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923.
. The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2001 [1923].
Chapter Thirteen
The Tomboy and the Aristocrat: Nabawiyya Ms

and Malak Hifn Nsif, Pioneers of Egyptian Feminism
Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen
A provincial region of the Ottoman Empire since 1517, Egypt was under
de facto occupation by Great Britain since 1882, yet it enjoyed considerable autonomy under the rule of the khedives. Inspired by the Ottoman
model, Egypt nonetheless experienced the rapid flourishing of a distinctly
Egyptian national identity around 1900 in the form of nationalist political
parties whose popularity increased during World War I. Feminine profiles began to evolve under the triple influence of British colonization,
modernization led by the viceroys (khedives), and the arrival of mixed
populations from the Mediterranean (Greeks and Italians, and also many
Christian Syrians) into the large cities.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century and into the first years of
the twentieth, for Arab Muslim and even Christian feminists, the model
of the Oriental modern woman was Ottoman and more precisely Istanbulite: reading these authors, like the Egyptian Muslim judge Qsim Amn
(18651908) or the Syrian Greek Orthodox publisher in Cairo, Jurj Zaydn
(18601914), it is only in Istanbul, in Turkey, that we find women who
are at once cultivated and educated, ideal companions for their monogamous husbands, and still loyal to the indispensable values of modesty and
reserve. To Syrian and Egyptian journalists of the era these female virtues
were the desired appurtenance of the Orient in general, of the Arab world,
and further, of Islam. A number of writers who endorsed improvement in
the womens condition in the Arab world tended to look toward Istanbul,
even selecting future spouses from this city. Qsim Amn, whose father
was a high Ottoman goverment official in Egypt, married a Turkish girl
and spent his summers in Turkey.
In another example, Safiyya Zaghll, wife of a prominent defender of
Egyptian nationalism (Saad Zaghll), was born in Cairo of Turkish parents,
then became Mother of the Egyptians, a major figure of Egyptian nationalism starting in 1919 and through the 1920s. Starting from the khedives
the Egyptian aristocracy consistently looked to Istanbul, spoke Turkish
298
catherine mayeur-jaouen
and thought in Ottoman terms, brought their wives to Turkey, and veiled
them in the style observed along the shores of the Bosphorus.
With the declaration of the British protectorate in Egypt in 1914 at
the outbreak of World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and
especially with the Egyptian national revolution in 1919, the modern
female type begins to take a more specifically Egyptian configuration,
with the rise of the nationalist discourse, on the one hand, and increasing attention paid to the social problems of rural Egypt, on the other. Of
the two authors that we study here, the first, Malak Hifn Nsif (1886
1918), embodied the early promise and potential of the Turkish model by
which she herself was inspired, only to be later, and painfully, confronted
with Egyptian realities. The second author, Nabawiyya Ms (18901951),
lived to personify a more authentically Egyptian version of the modern
womanemployed, unveiled, independent.
On 6 December 1918, some weeks after the death of the woman of letters, Malak Hifn Nsif, a public memorial was held in her honor at the
Egyptian University. It was the first public memorial ever organized for
a woman in Egypt. Of the men of letters, poets, and journalists, all those
who paid homage to the deceased were men, with one exception: the only
woman to make a speech was Nabawiyya Ms, a former schoolmate of
the deceased and then director of a public girls school in Alexandria. In
this way the two pioneers of Egyptian feminism were brought together
for the last time.
Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif are both associated in the collective memory with the first generation of Muslim women to emerge
from the harems of the elite to play a public role. Of course, they benefited
from the founding movement that, since perhaps the 1860s or 1870s, was
inspired by a combination of the Ottoman model, the emigration of Syrians to Cairo, and the European schools that had multiplied in Egypt. This
movement put the woman question at the center of public debate among
the Egyptian elite, and these debates created space for the appearance of
a womens press in Egypt starting in 1892 and thealbeit very limited
emergence of schooling for girls.1
1It should be mentioned that these developments took place much earlier at the Ottoman Empires metropole, where the first Rshdiyye girls school was founded in 1858 and
the first Ottoman womens review was published starting in 1868. For Egypt, on the general
context of the womens condition in the nineteenth century, cf. Judith Tucker, Women in
Nineteenth-century Egypt (Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1985), and on the appearance of women in the public domain, cf. Beth Baron, The Womens
the tomboy and the aristocrat
299
The collected articles of Malak Hifn Nsif have been recently republished in Cairo, and were followed soon after by the works of Nabawiyya
Ms: her memoirs and a short work from 1920, al-Mara wa-l-amal
[Women and employment]. The current interest that led to the reissue
of these two womens works points to their continued importance: celebrated in their lifetimes, they remain two pioneers of Egyptian feminism.2
At first glance they seem united by many similarities in education, career,
and opinion: Muslims, educated in the same school, they both wrote for
the press. Linked to the Egyptian nationalism movement, they advocated
equality of the sexes and called for developing womens education. Both,
ultimately, embody a feminism not necessarily or particularly Western
in orientation.3 Unlike Hud Sharw, founder of the Egyptian Feminist
Union (EFU) in 1923, who sadly confessed to writing more easily in French
than in Arabic (to the extent that she had to dictate her memoirs to a
secretary), Malak and Nabawiyya wrote elegantly in Arabic.4 This mastery
of written Arabic was an important factor at a time when nationalism
and the woman question were closely linked. At first glance, the respective images of Nabawiyya Ms and Malak Hifn Nsif seem close indeed:
both were modest Muslims who stayed faithful to traditional ethics and
Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1994).
2Nabawiyya Mss memoirs first appeared in serial form in 1937, and were later collected in one volume under the title Trkh bi-qalam, the publication date of the 1st edition is not known; 2nd edition presented by Rnia Abd al-Rahman and Hla Kmil (Cairo:
Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira); 3rd edition (1999), 272 pages. Al-Mara wa-l-amal was also
reissued by Ahmad Muhammad Salem (Cairo, 2004), 125 pages. Malak Hifn Nsif published a series of articles in different newspapers, collected under the title al-Nisiyyt.
The first edition was published in her lifetime, in 1910; the second edition, with homages
appended, was published posthumously in 1925. This second edition was reissued in 1998:
Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, majmat maqlt nasharat f l-Jarda f mawd al-mara
al-misriyya, (Cairo: Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira, 1998), 246 pages. What is known of her
life is based on the written accounts of her brother and contemporaries like Rashd Rid
and Mayy Ziyda.
3This is in comparison to the no less courageous, nationalistic sprit of feminism
embodied by Hud Sharw (18791947) and Doria Shafik (19081975), women who
expressed themselves primarily in French. On Hud Sharw and the birth of Egyptian
feminism, cf. Hud Sharw, Harem Years, the Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, translated
and itroduced by Margot Badran (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003 [1987]),
and Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation, Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995). On Doria Shafik, cf. Cynthia Nelson,
Doria Shafik, Egyptian Feminist: A Woman Apart (Gainesville, Miami, and Jacksonville: University Press of Florida, 1996).
4Cf. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, Historical Roots of a Modern Debate
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 178.
300
morals (adab and akhlq) while gaining access to a new education, if not
higher education. In the minds of the Muslim reformers of the time, they
were the ideal feminist figures. A close examination, however, shows the
different, and even opposing, choices that determined the personal and
professional lives of these two women.5
An Unprecedented Education
Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms were counted among the first
students of the Saniyya Teachers School, the first real public girls school
in Egypt.6 As was then the custom for girls of the Egyptian elite, Malak
Hifn Nsif first attended a private French school; once at the Saniyya
School she became, in 1901, one of the first two Egyptian women, along
with a fellow student from a bourgeois Coptic family, Victoria Awwd,
to obtain a diploma, and certainly the first female Muslim Egyptian to do
so. She then pursued her studies for three more years to receive the first
teaching diploma ever awarded to an Egyptian woman. In 1905, Malak
Hifn Nsif obtained authorization to teach, and taught for two years
before marrying in 1907. The courses at the Saniyya School were given in
French and English by foreign female instructors and followed a principally British model, while Arabic language classes were given by a sheikh
in the presence of a chaperone. Even if they were not permitted access
to true secondary education (much less higher education), this schooling permitted the girls to attain a level of learning unique at that time,
validated by a certificate of study judged nearly equivalent to that of the
male students.
Nabawiyya Ms, destined to become a fellow-student, friend, and rival
of Malak Hifn Nsif, initially received a very different sort of education.
She was above all an autodidact; she learned to read and write from her
5An excellent analysis of Malak Hifn Nsifs texts is provided by Susanne Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, Zaynab Fawwz (18601914) und Malak Hifn Nsif
(18861918) (Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag-OIDMG, 2004), 95. For a penetrating and important
article comparing Malak Hifn Nsf, Nabawiyya Ms, and Hud Sharw in their encounters with Western imperialism and European women, see Mervat Hatem, Through Each
Others Eyes: The Impact on the Colonial Encounter and European Women, 18621920,
in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, ed. Nupur Chaudhuri and
Margaret Strobel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 3558.
6On girls education in the Egypt of the period, cf. Donald M. Reid, Cairo University and
the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 5156.
301
older brother while teaching herself mathematics and English from books.
Apparently gifted with an exceptional intelligence and a strong will, at
the age of thirteen she decided to enroll in the Saniyya School against
her familys wishes, most notably those of her mother, who judged such
things against propriety (khurjan al qawid al-adab) and religion. She
clandestinely sat for the examination in 1901, and succeeded in achieving
the same level in French and in English as that of fellow students whose
Arabic was considerably inferior to hers. When she became a teacher in
1906 and realized that, lacking a diploma, her salary was to be half that of
her male colleagues, she presented herself for the state secondary school
examination (baccalaureate), then limited to boys. In 1907 she was the first
Egyptian woman to sit for this examination and succeed; she remained
alone in her success until the late 1920s when women began to regularly
sit for the exam.
Going as far as it was then possible for Muslim Egyptian women to go
in their studies, Nabawiyya and Malak were among the first to receive
teaching diplomas that permitted them, in principle, access to employment that was both remunerated and generally recognized as honorable.
They began to write for the press: by the end of 1908 Malak Hifn Nsif
began to publish articles in al-Jarda, while Nabawiyya Ms published in
al-Ahrm, al-Jarda, al Balgh al-usbgh, before founding her own review,
al-Fatt, in 1937. Initially, both of them chose not to write for a womens
press oriented toward women readers, but rather for newspapers read primarily by men. Malak Hifn Nsifs writings struck such a chord that they
were collected in 1910when she was not yet twenty-eight years oldin a
volume published in Cairo under the title al-Nisiyyt [Womens issues].
Acquiring an education in 1907 in a country where female illiteracy was
99 percent was in itself a militant act. Through their teaching, writing,
and actions, both women participated in the Egyptian nationalist movement, seeing in the improvement of womens position a means of rebuilding the nation and liberating it from ignorance. If Nabawiyya Ms later
mourned her own apoliticism in her memoirs, it must be said that some
of her decisionssuch as training Egyptian teachers to replace British or
Syrian teacherswere in themselves political acts, as was her constant
struggle against the Egyptian administration. Malak Hifn Nsif, through
family and marriage, was even closer to the nationalist Egyptian milieu.
It was, in fact, largely nationalism that lent legitimacy to the first wave
of Egyptian feminism. Writing for the newspaper of the al-Umma Party,
al-Jarda, before World War I firmly situated both women in the political
302
landscape of the time, alongside the most secularized and liberal disciples
of the Muslim reformist sheikh Muhammad Abduh (18491905).7
Different Social Origins and Family Histories
Their comparable educations could have led the two feminists to follow
similar trajectories. However, differences in their choices and personal
journeys indicate strongly opposing personalities. To begin with their
social origins, Malak Hifn Nsif belonged to the upper class or at least to
the new elites of the Egyptian state, while Nabawiyya Ms came from the
lower middle class, the very milieu that most strongly rejected schooling
for girls. Their family histories also pointed up very different sensibilities.
In Nabawiyya Mss case, the absence of a father played a determining
role in her education: the child of an Egyptian officer of modest origins
who died before she was born, she was raised by a mother who was intelligent but without formal education, who allowed her a certain amount of
liberty, notably during periods when the family resided in the countryside.
Contrary to the prevailing fashion for girls of the middle class and aristocracy, her mother did not make her study art, piano, embroidery, or even
French. When questioned later about her ignorance of music, dance, and
piano, she responded sharply that she had not been created for that life,8
and that she preferred mathematics. In some ways her choices were deliberately masculine, against the grain of the time and contrary to what, in
Egypt or the Ottoman Empire as in Europe, typically comprised a feminine education.9 An in-depth study of written Arabic seemed equally
7The al-Umma party was founded in 1902 and played an active role until World War I.
The party, with, its modernist, liberal, and Muslim reformist currents, gathered notables,
large land- and property-holders, and disciples of Muhammad Abduh. It was closely connected to the journal al-Jarda, founded in 1906; the journals editor, Ahmad Lutf al-Sayyid
(18721963), was the partys chief ideologue. From 1907 to 1914 al-Jarda served as the
mouthpiece of a liberal elite embracing Egyptian nationalism but hostile to pan-Islamism.
Al-Umma played an important role in efforts to establish the Egyptian University in 1908.
8Nabawiyya Ms, Trkh bi qalam, 56.
9As in the bitter observations of the Countess dAgoult (18051876) on the education
given to young girls of the French aristocracy during the Restoration, from her Mmoires:
In the distribution of time devoted to study, the majority of it was apportioned to pleasing talents. It was said that a woman of good upbringing, when she entered the world,
would have to have learned dance and music, regardless of taste or natural disposition,
and have done so in expectation of a husband who, perhaps in truth, might not like art or
balls, and who, the day after the wedding, might close the piano, throw away the pencils,
put an end to the dances, but who, it was just as possible, might like them as well. The
husband, this hypothetical husband who by the grace of French custom was yet unknown,
303
unnecessary for girls: when they were educated it was preferred that they
study European languages.
Nabawiyya Ms was, in fact, supported by her brother, Muhammad,
ten years her senior, who assisted her in discovering the beauty of the Arabic language and lent her books on English and mathematics. This close
link between brother and sister that survived into adulthood was characteristic of many Arab feminists of that generation. Largely self-taught
and ever guided by a male model, it was Nabawiyya Mss own choice,
contrary to the wishes of her family, to go to the Saniyya School. Her decision to sit for the state secondary school exam in 1907 was made in order
to earn a salary equal to that of a man. This openly declared struggle for
equality between men and women, not seen in the life of Malak Hifn
Nsif, made Nabawiyya Ms a singular figure. For more than twenty
years she remained the only woman in Egypt who held a secondary school
diploma. She was, moreover, the first woman to teach Arabic and the first
woman examiner in Arabic, struggling against professors trained at Dr
al-Ulm who considered it their sole prerogative to teach the language of
the Quran.10 Nabawiyya Ms eventually left the ministry of education to
teach privately and establish private schools.
This rejection of convention contrasts with the seemingly more conformist character of Malak Hifn Nsif, bound as she was by the protocols
of her much higher status and social class. In contrast to that of Nabawiyya
Ms, Malak Hifn Nsifs father played a determining role in her life story.
A figure in the Egyptian reformism of the day and known for his talents
in Arabic, Judge Hifn Nsif was among the founders of the first Egyptian University in 1908. He joined Qsim Amn in calling for the improvement of womens conditions.11 Hifn Nsif encouraged his daughters to
is in the French education of young girls what one could call, in the language of strategy,
the objective of parents and instructors; a vague, variable objective, who lends to all the
plans something vague, inconsistent and superficial, which the most serious of women will
resent all their lives. Daniel Stern, Mmoires, souvenirs et journaux de la comtesse dAgoult
(Paris: Le Temps Retrouv, Le Mercure de France, 2007), 152153.
10Founded in 1872, Dr al-Ulm was a school designed to educate, in a relatively modern spirit, the professors of Arabic who taught the Egyptian public. Its students and teachers often came from al-Azhar.
11 The two books of Qsim Amn (18651908) on the status of women, Tahrr al-mara
and al-Mara al-jadda, aroused various reactions and had considerable repercussions. He
called for relaxing the segregation of the sexes, for a gradual evolution toward unveiling
(sufr), and for girls education. His two books, along with other writings, were reprinted in
Qsim Amn, al-Aml al-kmila, ed. Muhammad Imra (Cairo: Dr al-Shurq, 2006). The
best introduction to the ideas of Qsim Amn is still that of Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought
in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 [1962]), 164170.
304
further their education. Among students at the Saniyya School, Malak was
known for the high quality of her essays in Arabic. Her father and teachers
encouraged her to compete with the younger Nabawiyya Ms when the
latter enrolled in the school. They were given the same essay subjects to
determine their respective levels; Hifn Nsif judged Nabawiyya superior
to Malakat least according to Nabawiyya.12
In her writings, Nabawiyya Ms gives vent to her jealousy of Malak
Hifn Nsifa jealousy that perhaps, as she suggests, was reciprocated.
Their competition for esteem outlasted their student years, and was
reawakened in Fayyum (a rural center where they both happened to
settle)13 when one was married and the other was a school director. What
began under the eyes of her father was continued under those of Malaks
husband, the sheikh Abd al-Sattr Bsil. Nabawiyya Ms describes in
detail how Bsil read Nabawiyyas articles in al-Jarda, thought highly of
them, and preferred their style and subject matter to those of his wifes.14
In adulthood as in school, it was a male assessment that judged the Arabic
of the two rivals.
In contrast to Nabawiyya Ms, who grew up more or less alone in
the shadow of an admired but often absent brother, Malak Hifn Nsif
was the eldest of six brothers and sisters. As their mother was often ill,
Malak adopted a maternal role toward her siblings. Among them it was
her brother, Majd al-Dn Nsif (18911978), who wrote his sisters biography and published her articles in a second edition.15 But Malak also
had a much younger sister, Kawkab Hifn Nsif, who was able to exceed
the limits experienced by Malak Hifn Nsif. Malaks junior by nineteen
years, Kawkab was one of the first Egyptian women to study in Europe
and became the first woman to direct a hospital in Egypt.16 Thus two
12Rather pettily, Nabawiyya Ms recalled in her memoirs that she bested Malak Hifn
Nsif, to the irritation of the latter, and that Hifn Nsif himself recognized this superiority.
Cf. Nabawiyya Ms, Trkh bi qalam, 47.
13Fayyum is an oasis about 90 kilometers to the west of Cairo. Surrounded by desert,
it was in this rural and conservative region that Nabawiyya Ms worked to develop girls
education and Malak Hifn Nsif married a local sheikh.
14Nabawiyya Ms, Trikh bi qalam, 117118.
15Majd al-Dn Nsif, Muassasat al-nahda al-niswiyya bi-MisrMalak Hifn Nsif, in
Fathiyya Muhammad, Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn (Cairo: Husayn Hasanayn, 1925)
and Bhithat al-Bdiyya, reprinted in al-Nisiyyt, 4756. Majd al-Dn Nsif was the secretary of Hud Sharw.
16Kawkab was part of a delegation of twelve Egyptian students sent to France in 1928;
she returned to become the first female director of a hospital in Egypt. Cynthia Nelson,
Doria Shafik, chapter 2.
305
decades were apparently sufficient to fundamentally transform the destinies of educated women.
Divergent Choices, Divergent Lives: Marriage
The divergent life choices of Malak and Nabawiyya point up ambiguities
and impasses in the first generation of Egyptian feminism. When Malak
first began to write for the press in 1908, she adopted the rather transparent pseudonym Bhithat al-bdiyya (Seeker in the Desert) to preserve her
modesty as a married woman, thus permitting her to write. She was not, in
fact, actually seeking to conceal an identity that readers knew was important to her writing. Before 1914, however, an Egyptian womans writing in
a newspaper under her proper name, or even corresponding with strangers, was still frowned upon. A womans writing was regarded as thoughts
addressed to other women, even if male readers also read them. Respect
for the rules of hijb led Malak Hifn Nsif to adopt a pseudonym; and
this reflected romantically and perhaps a bit melancholically on her solitude among the Bedouins of Fayyum. She delivered her famous lectures
of 1909 and 1910 to other women, and it was only via print that men came
to know them. Even when Malak Hifn Nsif sent a list of ten demands
to the Egyptian National Congress in the Spring of 1911, she had to ask a
man, Ahmad Mustaf, to read the report in public. Here she put forward
measures dealing with education, employment, marriage, and divorce:
she proposed that higher education be open to women, that space in the
mosque be made accessible, and that a minimum age for marriage, and
restrictions on spousal repudiation, be established.17
Some of these suggested measures were far from reflecting the demands
of the masses, at a time when most women were not yet seeking to study
or to worship in mosques. Yet they certainly do underscore, through contrast, the situation of women in Egypttheir semi-exclusion from the
17Malak Hifn Nsif had already written on 29 December 1908, an article on the minimum marriage age which she had fixed at sixteen years, cf. Malak Hifn Nsif, Sinn alzawj, al-Jarda, no. 551, Dh l-Hijja 1326, in al-Nisiyyt [ed. 1998], 7982. In her speech
of 1911, among the ten propositions she presented to the congress, her demand to allow
women to enter mosques to pray and hear sermons (with provisions that women come
in through a separate entrance half an hour before men, pray on raised platforms, and
leave earlier) provoked a hot discussion, according to the minutes. But when order was
restored the motion was rejected by a majority of votes, Baron, Womens Awakening in
Egypt, 194. Baron quotes the Foreign Office Archives, First Egyptian Congress, Foreign
Office, 371/1113/18097.
306
state educational system, their difficulty in entering the university even

for conferences, the widespread conjugal repudiations of which Qsim
Amn also deplored the frequency. The demands for a minimum age for
marriage and restrictions on repudiation remained for some time at the
top of the Egyptian feminists agenda.
If, as a civil servant, Nabawiyya Ms was also obliged to use a pseudonym while publishing in the press, she renounced it quickly afterward.18
She publicly and systematically sought confrontation with her supervisors
at work, actions which culminated in her leaving the ministry of education in 1926, after which she devoted herself to a career founding private
schools. Her departure was controversial: was she dismissed for disobedience or, in fact, for having denounced acts of sexual harassment?19
Their attitudes toward marriage are another essential difference
between our heroines. Malak Hifn Nsif married Abd al-Sattr Bsil, a
Bedouin sheik of Fayyum who was also an important political figure and
a cofounder of the Umma Party for which Ahmad Luft al-Sayyid was
the chief theorist.20 It was in al-Jarda, the party newspaper, that Malak
Hifn Nsif published most of her articles. A friend of Hifn Nsif arranged
her marriage to Abd al-Sattr Bsil, a sophisticated man who was openminded about marrying a woman engaged in the struggle for improving
womens status. Malak was not, however, his first wife, a fact she discovered only after the wedding when they left for Fayyum. Moreover, Bsil
had a daughter by a previous union to a cousin who lived nearby. Malak
also discovered that her husband had become sterile, with the result that
their marriage remained childless. In the absence of children, her in-laws
threatened her with the prospect of her husband contracting another
union.21 If she hid her pain from her family and the world, it was perhaps,
as Leila Ahmed has suggested, so that it not be said that her failed marriage was the unfortunate consequences of educating women.22 Malak
Hifn Nsif resigned herself to a conjugal life built upon a lie of omission,
18She signed the untitled articles, Damr hurr f jism raqq [A free conscience in a
weak body], in al-Ahrm.
19Arthur Goldschmidt, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2000), 139.
20On the latter, cf. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 170183 and Charles
Wendell, The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image: From its Origins to Ahmad Lutf
al-Sayyid (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972).
21 In the account of her brother, Majd al-Dn Nsif, Muassasat al-nahda al-niswiyya biMisrMalak Hifn Nsif, in Fathiyya Muhammad, Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn, 10.
22Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 183.
307
and in the testimonies of women who visited her in Fayyum she was
described as rather melancholic.
From experience Malak Hifn Nsif was particularly hostile to polygamy.
Her bitter words reveal what she had come to know living in Fayyum: it
is better for the first wife, she wrote, to be repudiated by her husband at
the time of his remarriage than to remain in a polygamous marriage. The
misery and liberty of a repudiated woman is preferable to the misery and
imprisonment of polygamy. She called for polygamous unions be submitted to the approbation of a judge.23 At the same time, she insisted on the
necessity of knowing ones partner before marriagean opportunity that
she herself had not had. While rejecting the idea of marriage for purely
economic reasons, she did not, on the other hand, insist on marriage for
love: contrary to many authors of her time, she had little faith in marriage for love, preferring instead the notion of unions based on reason, on
reciprocal sympathy, and common interest.24 This, ultimately, was what
she experienced herself. Married at twenty-one, she declared that marriage should under no circumstances be permitted until after puberty,
and so that girls could complete their education, she proposed sixteen
as the minimum age for marriage. Her own marriage removed her from
teaching and public life but permitted her to travelnotably to Istanbul
in 1908and to meet frequently with members of the elite of the day,
including European and American women with whom she corresponded
in various languages.25 She became, notably, a friend of the celebrated
Turkish feminist Halide Edip (18841964), whom she met in Istanbul.
Nabawiyya Ms, for her part, adamantly refused three proposals of
marriage, explaining rather bluntly her disgust with the institution as it
existed in Egypt of that time. It seemed to her mathematically impossible that her suitors, all civil servants, could match the living standard
she enjoyed with her own salary, since marriage perforce meant giving
up employmentshe could not, she explained, depend on others. But
above all, I hate marriage and consider it an obscenity (qadhra).26 She
was far from ignorant on sexual matters, explaining that from childhood
she had understood what took place between men and women from the
23Malak Hifn Nsif, Taaddud al-zawjt aw al-darir, al-Nisiyyt, 7679. Susanne

Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 161.
24Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 151.
25One example is the American author Elisabeth Cooper, who dedicated her book, The
Women of Egypt (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914), to Malak.
308
frequent obscene allusions in conversation or from observing animals; in

every case the womans role seemed degrading, humiliating. Her rejection
of marriage was exceptional for Arab society in general and for Egyptian
society in particular, and clearly signified a desire for equality of the sexes
and an indisputable thirst for independence.27 Her unmarried status prevented her from traveling except for work obligations; in this and all other
respects Nabawiyya Mss life seems to have remained more strictly
Egyptian in its horizons and fields of interest than that of Malak Hifn
Nsifa fortiori than that of Hud Sharweven if all these feminists
shared a common nationalism.
Divergent Choices, Divergent Lives: Social Roles and Womens Work
The acceptance or rejection of marriage can also be traced to another
essential difference: employment. We have seen that Malak Hifn Nsif,
who taught for two years after leaving the Saniyya Teachers School, nonetheless choseor was obligedto abandon work when she married. As
a journalist, as was perhaps inevitable, she dedicated some pages to the
topic of womens employment, but always kept the model of the housewife as the feminine ideal clearly in mind.28 If Malak Hifn Nsif stopped
working, she was able to take on other roles with the support of family
members (her father, husband, and brother), her place in society, and her
public prominence. Her social role corresponded to what was expected
of a woman of her statusfor example, founding charitable associations
following the example set by the princesses of the khedives. Inspired by
European and American models as well, she visited orphans and poor
women and distributed clothes and tended to the unfortunate, even in
her own house. She nursed Fayyum Bedouins wounded during the Tripoli
War in 1911. Finally, in 1914, Malak Hifn Nsif participated in the founding
of the Womens Cultural Union (Ittihd al-Nis al-Tahdhib) under the
revered patronage of the mother of the khedive, and delivered a lecture
to the female audience to mark the occasion.
27The poetess Mayy Ziyda (18861941), a contemporary of Malak Hifn Nsif as well
as an admirer and friend, also never married, perhaps because she hosted a salon where
she received male guestssomething no husband would allow. The causes of celibacy in
Mayy Ziyda, who was subject to nervous breakdowns but capable of arousing grand passions, seemed in any case very different from those which motivated Nabawiyya Ms.
309
While Malak Hifn Nsif did not have children, her role as older sister,
her teaching career, and her charitable work all helped to develop her
ideas on girls education in her writing. She felt that female pupils, as
future wives and mothers, should be educated in housework, since they
were called on to keep house and be responsible for the moral education
of their children.29 Womens education, therefore, should include courses
in the domestic sciences (tadbr al-manzil), in hygiene (qnn al-sihha),
and in pediatrics (tarbiyat al-atfl)the latter in order to combat infant
mortality. But these courses should not be at a level inferior to that of
the boys. On the most basic level of girls education, Malak Hifn Nsif
agreed with Nabawiyya Ms when the latter criticized, in particular, the
quality of the Arabic training she had received. Both also demanded a
well-rounded education founded on morality and ethics which rejected
mere rote learning in favor of critical thinking.30 Malak Hifn Nsif held
that it was necessary to give women a good Islamic education to prevent students slavishly aping Western women: she praised the culture of
Turkish women in this respect and noted their success in marriage with
elite Egyptians who disdained their own uneducated compatriots.31 As
wife and mother, the married woman should not lapse into inert domesticity and content herself with reading novels, but should remain physically active, if not in a sport then in exercise, and live a healthy life as
did the Bedouins and women of the countryside.32 As for reading, useful
books should be preferred over novels.
For her part, Nabawiyya Ms explicitly chose to work, to earn a
living, to be financially independent by earning a salary not only equal
but superior to that of most male colleagues. Her rejection of marriage
was closely linked to her choice of a profession at the highest possible
level. Nabawiyya Ms wrote Women and Employment in 1920, when the
topic was little spoken of in the Egyptian feminist press, and in speeches
she defended womens labor and their equality with men. In contrast to
Malak Hifn Nsif, for whom the feminine ideal remained relatively conventional, Nabawiyya Ms did not call women to the more orthodox pastime of charitable work, and from her pen flowed little of the sweetness
and compassion supposed proper to the ideal woman: she reveals, rather,
29A relatively new idea which appeared around 1895, as underlined by Brckelmann,
Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 117. Cf. Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, 69.
31 Brckelmann, Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, 191.
32Malak Hifn Nsif, al-Nisiyyt, 128.
310
the acute sense of being in competition with the men to whom she was
determined to prove her equality. She even opened her memoirs with
a summary of her life as a constant struggle (jihd mustamirr).33 With
regard to girls education, Nabawiyya Ms emphasized competencey in
Arabic and the professional training necessary for a woman, while also
stressing a solid foundation in the Quran and the Sunna as essential to
safeguarding Eastern or Islamic mores (akhlq sharqiyya) and preserving
national identity.
The Veil: For or Against Unveiling
The themes of marriage and employment engaged the whole of society,
but it was the publication of Qsim Amns works in 1899 and 1901 that
made fashionable the debate between partisans of the veil (hijb) and
of unveiling (sufr). Nabawiyya Ms was one of the first female Egyptian Muslims from her social milieu to abandon the face veil (niqb).
She did so in 1909 while directing a girls school in Fayyum well before
Hud Sharws spectacular gesture signaling urbanites to publicly unveil
in 1923. Nabawiyya Ms noted that peasants and the lower classes had
never covered their faces, that the niqb was only a concern of the urban
elite, and that the call to sufr must come in the form of deeds and not
just in words such as those of Qsim Amn. What was the point of the
transparent niqb, she asked, when it still allowed the face, arms, and
neckline to be discerned?
While Nabawiyya Ms chose to reveal her face and hands, hers was
a truly modest sufr, an extremely strict style of dress that hid her neck,
arms, and legsa form of dress that was later refined into one that can
be described as masculine. This was a stand against all those who rhymed
sufr (unveiling) with fujr (immodesty). At the same timeunlike Malak
Hifn Nsifshe refused to shake hands with men, always feigning to
have just made ablutions. Scrupulous in regard to her appointments with
the many men who came to visit, she put a sign above her door announcing, The director will receive men only between 8 AM and 4 PMthat
is, only within working hours. Despite being the only unveiled woman in
her milieu, it was by virtue of her extreme modesty that Nabawiyya Ms
could praise herself for never having given cause for slander. In this way
311
she advocated a perfectly modest unveiling (sufr kmil muhtasham)

that seemed to merge Eastern traditions with the Sunna. She was to renew
her call for this principle as late as 1937 when noting that unveiling had
gone the way of immodest display (tabarruj) with the short dresses and
low necklines of the European style.34
In 1909, Nabawiyya Ms removed her veil while living in the conservative region of Fayyum; Malak Hifn Nsif, who lived in the same region,
continued to defend the face veil, arguing that Egyptian society was not
yet ready for unveiling. She developed her ideas in response to an advocate
of sufr, Abd al-Hamd Hamd.35 The face veil was not a religious obligation, thus in principle women could very well remove it; the problem was
first and foremost social, as unveiled women risked exposing themselves
to the rude remarks and offensive behavior of men in the street who were
unprepared for this. And were the sexes to mingle freely, womens lack of
sound moral education exposed them to grave dangers.
This was, indeed, the point of view of Egyptian feminisms founding
father, Qsim Amn (d. 1908), expounded in his famous books Tahrr almara [The emancipation of women] and al-Mara al-jadda [The new
woman]. Hostile on principle to the hijb, he judged its future disappearance desirable even if it was premature in the Egypt of the time. Influenced by the Istanbul elite, Malak Hifn Nsif favored the paletot (frock
coat) and cache-poussire (bonnet) with a face veil for women. It was
necessary to find a middle course between the prison of Eastern custom
and European ways of life, and in 1909, the ideal seemed to be the model
offered by the Istanbul elite. As for the intermingling of the sexes, Malak
Hifn Nsif thought it desirable that girlsunder the strict eyes of their
parentsmeet with young men. She believed, furthermore, that married
women and possibly girls should be able to meet men outside the norms
of hijb.
In both cases, the two women recognized that new norms of modesty
were needed. It was necessary to educate men about interacting with the
opposite sex in order to make this possible, step by step. It was also necessary to redefine hijb and sufr while developing a new etiquette (adab)
that preserved the mores (akhlq) of both sexes.
Veiled or unveiled, how should one dress? Malak Hifn Nsif left texts
criticizing women for dressing ostentatiously, for wearing too much

35Malak Hifn Nsif, Al-hijb am al-sufr, al-Nisiyyt, 6065.
312
makeup or imitating Western women too closely.36 Veiled when in public, Malak essentially covered herself in black. Together with articles that
pleaded for women to dress conservatively, her choice of dress turned
her into an icon of modest Islamic feminism. In perhaps the first such
example from a woman of her status, she allowed herself to be photographed without her veil. In the published photograph Malak is young,
a bit plump and appearing to be enjoying herself; seated, she is dressed
in Bedouin garb. Her hair is visible under a light veil that frames her fine
features, and she has a pleasant smile with just a hint of coquettery. The
English writer Charlotte Cameron37 described her as a pretty woman who
loved dressing up, and who complained in private of not leading a life of
society or having more occasion to dress a little better. Nabawiyya Ms
herself described Malak Hifn Nsif as a woman in love with, but jealous
of, her husband, and as someone always seeking to please.
We have several photographs of Nabawiyya Ms. Petite, rather unattractive, and always happy to exaggerate her ugliness in the descriptions
that she gave of herself, she claims to have abandoned her femininity
just before the age of thirteen, forever putting away the necklace that her
mother had given her on the occasion of a psychological illness. Puberty
and the entry into the Saniyya School clearly coincided with a deliberate
refusal to act the part of a woman, or at least to resemble other women.
In a public photograph, Nabawiyya Ms appears in a mans collared shirt
and tie, wearing a veil that entirely covers her hair but reveals her face.
Standing there with small glasses, clutching a paper, Nabawiyya Ms
willfully presents herself as an aggressive virago who defies all masculine
authority and sees in women only rivals. She meticulously noted any and
every misogynistic remark made by her brother, her professors, inspectors, and colleagues. Obsessive in her insistence on respect for modesty
(hishma)by female students as by instructorsso that no one could
find fault, she meticulously described her unending combat to force the
admiration, if not the sympathy, of men she encountered on her professional path, men who were to her as adversaries in battle.
36Malak Hifn Nsif, Jaml al-sayyidt, al-Nisiyyt, 123; Brckelmann, Wir sind die
Hlfte der Welt, 191.
37Charlotte Cameron, A Womans Winter in Africa (London: Stanley Paul, 1913), 44 sq.
313
Conclusion
Destiny finally separated the two heroines journeys one last time. On
17 October 1918, Malak Hifn Nsif died of Spanish influenza at age thirtytwo. The many speeches given in her honor along with written and
published homages attest to the great emotion prompted by her death,
which was regarded as much a loss for the world of letters as it was for
the cause of women. Malak Hifn Nsif died too early to witness any of the
decisive transformations of the inter-war period, and we can never know
what she would have thought of these, most notably the unveiling of
urban Muslim women after 1923. Nabawiyya Ms survived her peer by
many years, leaving memoirs, for example, dating from 1937, in which she
looked back on developments in the womens cause. Despite flashes of
pride in a long career of accomplishments, a sharpness in her tone seems
to imply that her struggle for liberty and for the entrance of women into
modernity was above all a personal one.
Leila Ahmed suggests that it was the premature death of Malak Hifn
Nsif, coupled with the organizational and political success of Hud
Sharw and her feminist organization founded in 1923, that led to an
identification of feminism with westernization, while the rather more
reformist, Muslim, and less clearly westernized mode embodied by Malak
Hifn Nsif was ultimately abandoned.38 This opposition is, perhaps, too
simplistic: Malak Hifn Nsif spoke French, English, Arabic, and Turkish,
was inspired by the ideas of Herbert Spencer, cited Victor Hugo and
Charles Darwin, and associated with English and American women. She
never invoked the woman question in terms of religion; it was not an
issue that called on one to cite verses from the Quran or the hadiths of
the Prophet. Malaks brother Majd al-Dn was a member of Sharws
Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU), and it is not unlikely that Malak herself
also joined. In 1924, a commemoration for Malak Hifn Nsif on the seventh anniversary of her death was presided over by Hud Sharw herself.
Malaks younger sister Kawkab took part in the Egyptian movement to
remove the veil at the end of the 1920s. And Nabawiyya Ms, who with
her defense of Islamic mores was never suspected of excessive westernization, supported the movement of Hud Sharw, even accompanying her
at the World Womens Conference in Rome in 1922 and participating in
the founding of the EFU.
38Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 175.
314
By the end of the 1920s a current of thought was emerging that was
both hostile to the intermingling of the sexes while calling, at the same
time, for the improvement of womens life conditions on a clearly Islamic
basis.39 Although proponents of that current, and later Islamists, claimed
Malak Hifn Nsif and Nabawiyya Ms for their own, it is not clear that
this appropriation is entirely justified. Malak Hifn Nsifs work calls out
with the vibrant pain of a woman fully conscious of the tragic situation of
women in her country, while Nabawiyya Ms claimed liberty and independence in a world dominated by men.
39Cf. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, La question fminine vue par la revue no-salafiste alFath la fin des annes 1920: lavnement des ides dune petite bourgeoisie musulmane,
in Modernits islamiques. Actes du colloque organis Alep loccasion du centenaire de la
disparition de limam Muhammad Abduh, ed. Maher al-Charif and Sabrina Mervin (Damascus: Institut franais du Proche-Orient, 2007), 5377.
315
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Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam, Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Amn, Qsim. al-Aml al-kmila. Edited by Muhammad Imra. Cairo: Dr al-Shurq,
2006.
Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam and Nation, Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.
Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1996 [1995].
Baron, Beth. The Womens Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1994.
Brckelmann, Susanne. Wir sind die Hlfte der Welt, Zaynab Fawwz (18601914) und
Malak Hifn Nsif (18861918). Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag-OIDMG, 2004.
Cameron, Charlotte. A Womans Winter in Africa. London: Stanley Paul, 1913.
Cooper, Elisabeth. The Women of Egypt. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914.
Goldschmidt, Arthur. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt. Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2000.
Hatem, Mervat. Through Each Others Eyes: The Impact on the Colonial Encounter and
European Women, 18621920, in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel, 3558. Bloomington: Indiana
Hifn Nsif, Malak. al-Nisiyyt, majmat maqlt nasharat f l-jarda f mawd al-mara
al-misriyya. Cairo: Multaq l-mara wa l-dhkira, 1998 [1910, 1925].
Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983 [1962].
Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine. La question fminine vue par la revue no-salafiste al-Fath
la fin des annes 1920: lavnement des ides dune petite bourgeoise musulmane,
in Modernits islamiques. Actes du colloque organis Alpet loccasion du centenaire
de la disparition de limam Muhammad Abduh, edited by Maher al-Charif and Sabrina
Mervin, 5377. Damascus: Institut franais du Proche-Orient, 2007.
Muhammad, Fathiyya. Balghat al-nis f l-qarn al-ishrn. Cairo: Husayn Hasanayn, 1925.
Ms, Nabawiyya. al-Mara wa-l-amal. Cairo: al-Haya al-Misriyya al-mma li-l-Kitb, 2004
[1920].
. Trkh bi-qalam. Cairo: Multaq l-Mara wa-l-Dhkira, 1999 [1937].
Nelson, Cynthia. Doria Shafik, Egyptian Feminist: A Woman Apart. Gainesville, Miami, and
Jacksonville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
Reid, Donald M. Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge
Sharw, Hud. Harem Years, the Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist. Translated and introduced by Margot Badran. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003 [1987].
Stern, Daniel. Mmoires, souvenirs et journaux de la comtesse dAgoult. Paris: Le Temps
Retrouv, Le Mercure de France, 2007.
Tucker, Judith. Women in Nineteenth-century Egypt. Cambridge, London, and New York:
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Wendell, Charles. The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image. From its Origins to Ahmad
Lutfi al-Sayyid. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1972.
Chapter Fourteen
Hayriye Melek (Hun), a Circassian Ottoman Writer

between Feminism and Nationalism1
Alexandre Toumarkine
Although her life was connected to major historical events and she
was personally acquainted with a variety of significant contemporaries,
Hayriye Melek remains practically unknown, even in feminist circles. The
present article seeks to understand her involvement both in feminism and
in the communal/national cause. We also examine the dialectical relation
between these two spheres, which we may understand as intertwined or
as distinct. This study is an attempt to introduce this figure, to give the
reader a sense of her life and works.
Hayriye Melek was born in the 1890s2 in Hacosman, a village situated
between the port of Bandrma and the city of Balikesir in the Manyas
region of northwest Anatolia. Hacosman was a village of muhacir
Circassians, one of thousands of Anatolian villages inhabited by immigrants driven from the northwest Caucasus in the 1860s. It was somewhat
unique in belonging to the Oubykhs, a tribe whose noted pugnacity and
resistance in wars against Russia in the nineteenth century was a factor
in its complete expulsion. The tribe settled in three regions of Anatolia:
zmit-Sapanca; Samsun, in the Pontic littoral; and Manyas. The Oubykhs
of Manyas often settled in existing Turkish villages or towns, forming separate neighborhoods; Hacosman, however, was among the smaller number of villages that they founded outright.
As a tribe, the Oubykhs possessed a hierarchical social structure with
nobles, free men, and slaves. Hayriye Melek belonged to a well-known
1 My thanks to Anastasia Falierou, Emre ktem, Nikos Sigalas, and zgr Tresay,
without whose assistance this article would not have come to light.
2Sefer E. Berzeg, Kafkas Diasporasnda Edebiyatlar ve Yazarlar Szl [Dictionary
of authors and writers in the Caucasian diaspora] (Samsun: Kafkasya Gerei, 1995), 125.
In his note (125), Sefer Berzeg puts the year of birth at 1896, though this seems improbable
when one takes into account the fact that Hayriye Melek began to publish in womens
reviews in 19081909.
318
alexandre toumarkine
noble clan, the Hun, who were founding members of the village. Hayriye
Meleks father, Kasbolat Bey, belonged to the generation expelled from the
Caucasus, and he mobilized Circassian horsemen in the Manyas region
to form a voluntary auxiliary unit against the Russians during the RussoOttoman war of 18771878. This mobilization demonstrates the influence
of the family among the Circassian immigrants.
As members of the elite class the family possessed slaves and extensive
lands; these gave the family the material means to educate the subsequent
generation, and Ali Sait, Hayriye Meleks half-brother, was able to enter
Harbiye military school in Istanbul.3 Hayriye Melek was one of the few
Muslims who studied at the Catholic girls school of Notre Dame de Sion
in Istanbul.4 The young girl already knew several languages and dialects
of the northwest Caucasus, and attending the school gave her an education in French. Little is known of her years in school. She seems to have
had some psychological or emotional problems5 but was blessed with a
rich imagination and possessed a strong, somewhat rebellious character,
reminiscent of heroines in the novels of Pierre Loti.
Meleks first works appeared in Mehasin, an illustrated review (September 1908November 1909),6 and in the womens press that blossomed
after the Young Turk revolution in 1908. Here she published at least7 five
3On Ali Sait, see Sefer E. Berzeg, Trkiye Kurtulu Savanda erkes Gmenler. II.
[The Circassian migrants during the Turkish liberation war. II] (Istanbul: Nart Yay., 1990),
2425.
4Saadet zen, Yz Elli Yln Tan. Notre Dame de Sion [A hundred-fifty-year testimony. Notre Dame de Sion] (Istanbul: Yap Kredi, 2006). The first requests from Muslim
families to enroll their children in the school date from 1857; but it was not until 1886 that
the first Muslim students were accepted. They remained very few until 1908: 2 of the 46
who enrolled in 1886; 1 of 33 in 1890; 2 of 37 in 1900; 1 of 63 in 1906. They were exempted
from mass and religion classes and their schooling was sometimes much shorter than that
of the other students. The lag between the first requests and the enrollment may be due
to the fact that the nuns were afraid of possible accusations that they were proselytizing
among Muslims.
5She attempted suicide as an adolescent. This was communicated to me by Zeynep
Aksoy, who is studying Circassian associations of the Second Constitutional monarchy at
Bosphorus University. To get an idea of Hayriyes idiosyncrasy, look at the three chapters
in Mnevver Bir Trk hanm Ressam Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendinin Mutlakiyet, Merutiyet
ve Cumhuriyet Hatralar [Souvenirs of absolutism, Second Constitutional monarchy and
Republic by an intellectual Turkish painter, Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendi] (Istanbul: Pnar
Yaynlar, March 2000), 216249.
6Tlay Keskin, Feminist / Nationalist Discourse in the First Year of the Ottoman Revolutionary Press (19081909): Readings from the Magazines of Demet, Mehasin, and Kadn
(Salonica), MA thesis (Bilkent University, Ankara, 2003). Twelve issues came out during
this period.
7One cannot exclude the fact that certain of her works were published under a
pseudonym.
hayriye melek (hun)
319
literary works, short stories, and poetry.8 In 1910 she published a novel,
Zhre-i Elem [The sorrow of the shepherds star]. Other works followed in
various journals. If there is little proof that Melek participated in womens
associations that flourished at the time, it is certain that she did join the
erkes ttihad ve Teavun Cemiyeti (Circassian Association for Union and
Mutual Aid) created in 1908. She appears to have contributed to the associations social and cultural activities: collecting money for a Circassian
school; helping in the development of a Circassian alphabet in non-Arabic
letters, and contributing to the publication of books on the Circassians
and their culture.
Melek also contributed to Guaze [The guide], a review published in 1911
by the Circassian Association. Included in its first issue is her piece, Bir
Sava Hikyesi [A war story]. This and other articles on the Caucasus wars
can mostly be categorized as patriotic literature, but some, like Kabileler
Arasnda [Among the tribes] have true political significance. In it she
compares the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar with that of the Caucasus
by the Russians, paying particular attention to the divisions and internal
struggles among the tribes that facilitated the work of conquest. In the
issues of Guaze that I was able to consult, I did not encounter any articles
by Melek devoted to the subject of women, except in advertisements in
the review Kadn [Woman], and of course in Zhre-i Elem, Meleks novel.
Unlike those written by the male editors of Guaze (Rza hab, Met Yusuf
zzet Paa, Yusuf Suat), Meleks novel was not serialized.
Traces of Hayriye Melek can be found, throughout World War I, in
the activities of various cultural associations and committees created by
northern Caucasians. In September 1918, she appears as cofounder and
president of a Circassian womens mutual aid society, erkes Kadnlar
Teavn Cemiyeti. A pilot Circassian school was opened near the palaces
of Dolmabahe and Yldz, in Akaretler, in the Beikta district. Though
she did not teach courses herself, Melek was involved in the schools
founding. Despite her engagement in community activities, she maintained involvement in the woman question and never left the circle of
female writers and journalists with whom she had been acquainted before
the war. In August 1918, even before the war had finished, she published
8rpnlar [The beating of wings], Mehasin 5 (Kanun-i Sani 1324), 336342; Firar.
Hikye [The escape. A national story], Mehasin 7 (Mart 1325), 521529; nkisar- Hayal
[Broken dream], Mehasin 8 (Temmuz 1325), 569570, and An- Zaaf. [A moment of weakness], Mehasin 8 (Temmuz 1325), 585589; iir-i Girizan [Girizans poem], Mehasin 11
(Terin Evvel 1325), 782786.
320
a long article entitled Islm Kadn [The Muslim woman], to which we

will return in detail below, in the Turkish nationalist journal Trk Yurdu
[Turkish home].
During the War of Independence (from 1919 to 1922), Melek supported
the Turkish nationalist cause yet at the same time was deeply involved in
Circassian activism, considering that these two positions were not in contradiction. In his memoirs, Tark Mmtaz Gztepe noted that Melek had
joined Halide Edip, Mnevver Saime, and Zaliha Osman in leading a demonstration held in Kadiky on 22 May 1919 to protest the landing of Greek
troops in Izmir. In September 1919, Melek married Met Yusuf zzet Paa,
commander of the 19th Army Corps and one of the very few Ottoman generals to cross over to the side of the nationalist Anatolian movement. He
also claimed descent from the North Caucasus, and above all considered
himself a historian of the community; he had been a leading figure in Circassian associations since 1908. The couple was separated when Met zzet
Yusuf Paa was forced to leave occupied Istanbul and return to Ankara,
where he became member of Parliament for Bolu district.
In March 1920, the organ of the Circassian womens mutual aid society,
a journal called Diyane, appeared in Istanbul. Melek served as president
of the association and editor-in-chief of the review. Her half-brother, Ali
Sait, imprisoned by the English at Malta, was released in November 1921;
he rejoined the Kemalist forces to pursue a military career in the new
Turkish army. Melek lost her husband in April 1922.
All activities of the Circassian movement were forbidden in 1923; Melek
ceased all involvement because of the ban. However, her second marriage
and her settling in France provide evidence that she maintained ties with
her Circassian identity. Her return to Turkey in the 1940s gave her the
opportunity to resume the struggle for the Circassian causebut this
time in a completely different ideological framework, that of the Cold War
and anticommunism.
In 1926, Hayriye Melek broke her literary silence to publish a novel,
Zeynep (more on this novel below). In 1931 she joined her elder sister in
Tunisia. Here she made the acquaintance of another figure in the Circassian movement who had originated from the North Caucasus and was
not a member of the diaspora as Met Yusuf zzet Paa had been. Aytek
Namitok was a lawyer and member of the government of the Mountain
Republic of the North Caucasus from 1918 to 1920. They married, and she
followed him to Paris, a city which had become, after Prague and Warsaw,
a Mecca for political migrs fighting for independence from Russia (and
hayriye melek (hun)
321
then the USSR). The couple stayed in France until 1942. Melek helped her
husband in his research on the history and folklore of the North Caucasus.
In 1942, Namitok left Paris for Berlin to join other political migrs in conducting anti-Soviet activity under German protection. In the aftermath of
the war, he was captured and imprisoned by the Americans. Melek also
left France in 1942, to find herself once again in a rural Turkish-Circassian
village in the Manyas region. In 1949 Namitok rejoined Melek in Turkey.
In the modest and humorous account of Muza Ramazan, a Dagestani
travel companion, Namitok received no warm welcome from a wife who
reproached him for his long absence, for having sent little news in the
intervening years, and for seeming insufficiently excited to have found
her again.
The couple settled in Istanbul, and Melek threw herself into work for
the North Caucasus associations that had reappeared in Istanbul after the
end of World War II, with the development of a multi-party system and
the beginning of the Cold War. She assisted Professor Georges Dumzil
with his work in linguistics. She passed away at the end of October 1963,
and was buried in Karacaahmet Cemetery.
The Dialectic of Impossible Love and Necessary Respect
Hayriye Melek broached the theme of impossible love in Firar, a work
appearing in Mehasin, and first published in 1908 (but curiously, or erroneously, dated April 1906/1322). The work starts with some general considerations on women, and is followed by a letter from a mother to her
daughter that ultimately tells a story of many voices. The young, educated Ulvi (a nephew of the letters author) and the unschooled Rengin
are in love with each other. It is the Hamidian period, and youth is being
stifled by the regime. In secret, Ulvi shares politically subversive works
with Rengin: Namk Kemals Celal, Ziya Paas Rya, Tercih-i Bend, and
Terkib-i Bend. He shares with her his enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas,
particularly those of the French Revolution. In his rather literary conception of love, women are to him as fragile flowers. For the two lovers there
is no antagonism between love and political ideas; in fact, the former is
sublimated by the latter. Ulvi compares his lover to a Jeanne dArc facing the despotic (istibdat) Hamidian army that has swept over the land.
The two young people announce to their respective parents their love
and desire to marry. In the midst of the wedding preparations, Behin,
322
Rengins elder sister, falls gravely ill and faints; it becomes clear that she
also loves Ulvi. Rengin calls off the marriage and goes so far as to tell Ulvi
that she no longer loves him. The political and sentimental idealism of the
young lovers is shattered by the family order, specifically by the presence
of elders.
Zhre-i Elem, published in 1910, depicts a tableau of impossible love,
built upon a classic framework common to novels of the constitutional
period. Osman Hamdi, a young officer of Circassian origin, is in love with
Beria, who happens to be distantly related to him. Their union is impossible, however, endogamy being strictly prohibited by Circassian tradition.
Sabia, another male character, is likewise in love with Beria, though he
would prefer to marry a rich widow with connections at the imperial palace. If love-based marriage, here, is unattainable, it is principally because
of society, its moral norms, and the material inequalities that keep the
lovers apart. Marriage is an unreachable condition, a sort of mirage.
Two short stories that Melek published in Mehasin in 1908 include portraits of unsatisfied and disenchanted married women. There is symmetry
in these stories of women disappointed by love: they are two halves of a
whole. In An- Zaaf, the female narrator bitterly describes her failure
in marriage. She tells how for some months after the wedding she loved
sincerely, romantically, and unreservedly, the man she had married. In
return, her boorish husband neglected her and treated her as an object,
a mere decoration. The profound disillusionment that followed transformed her psychologically. She became semi-hysterical, over-reactive;
sometimes she burst into laughter for no reason at all; just as often she
was thrown into a sort of imagined ecstasy that rendered her delirious. It
seemed she would lose control of her body, and was frequently overcome
with trembling. Despite the state of her health, she resigned herself to
her fate, though she repaid her husband with crushing material demands,
tinged with hate. Looking back, however, she no longer despised him, but
regarded him with a sort of sober, clear-eyed pity.
In iir-i Girizn, the heroine and narrator is the object of the platonic
love of a man who admires and idealizes her, and speaks to her only in
the language of poetry. The lover is paralyzed, and his feelings never pass
from words to deeds. He is incapable of understanding her expectations,
and she remains alone with her tears.
In these two pessimistic works a shared love seems impossible; these
stories are part of Meleks critique of a literary and idealistic conception
of love. In both cases the women are unable, or do not know how to for-
hayriye melek (hun)
323
mulate their wishes. The obstacles to happiness are not external, as in

Zhre-i Elem, but are a result of men and womens incapacity to understand one another.
In an article entitled Kadn Mektuplar, Milli Hikye [Womans letters, national story], published in 1912 (1328) in the journal Musavver
Kadn, Melek draws conclusions from the impasse of impossible love.
The text takes the form of two letters from a certain Fatma to a female
friend, Gzin. The theme is again that of disillusionment in marriage. In
her second letter, Fatma recalls the gulf that separates her from her husband, a soldier. Despite all her efforts she could do nothing to animate
her husband, who was transformed, before her very eyes, into a sort of
statue, without life or emotions. The state of misunderstanding between
them seems permanent: he falls asleep when she plays the piano, and
laughs when she reads poetry. Fatma then tells the story of her platonic
love for Nejat, a handsome young man and a relation of her husband.
Nejat, the delightful musician and poet, has just returned from France
where he had been studying; he stays the winter with the couple and in so
doing blows a breath of new life into the home. To the often melancholic
young man, Fatma brings her tenderness and reassurance. Fatmas story
begins to stretch the boundaries of reality, leading the reader to doubt
Nejats existence; he becomes a specter haunting her. She describes how
one night, alone, she plays a sad melody on the piano, and loses herself
in the music. When she looks up, Nejat is standing there. He tells her that
sometimes life is so painful, one would like to die. Little by little, Fatma
becomes conscious of her love for him. Yet she rejects it on account of her
marriage and the birth of her child, and takes refuge in her duties. From
the moment of this decision, the border between reality and unreality is
obscured. She no longer wants to see Nejat, and falls gravely ill. While
recovering, she one day finds the strength to go into the garden. There she
hears the music of a piano, and feels the green eyes of Nejat upon her. The
attraction is irresistible. Although greatly disturbed, Fatma miraculously
finds the strength to resist, giving to Nejat the same reply as that given by
the young Rengin in Firar: I dont love you. She faints, and when she
wakes, Nejat is gone.
In the first letter to her friend Gzin, Fatma describes her dissatisfaction, her desire for change, for a new wind to blow. Neither reading
books nor surrounding herself with close family have been sufficient to
pull her from the profound feeling of worthlessness that eats away at
her, a feeling she expresses many times in the letter. She searches hard,
324
but in vain, for consolation in Western arts (particularly in music), but her
efforts do nothing to improve her state, and in fact only make it worse.
Love is absent. Its existence is not impossible, but society does not allow
it to flourish. When love does succeed it is only at the cost of a womans
respectability. A womans choice is thus between love (ak) and respect
(hrmet). All in all, confesses Fatma to her friend, if love is impossible, she
prefers to be respected within the sad confines of her family circle.
Marriage and Education
Marriage was the only possibility open to women, though it did not come
without cost. In Firar, Melek returns to this question. In a letter from a
woman to her daughter, Melek advances the idea that women marry and
produce offspring almost automatically, by instinct, without knowing anything of motherhood or childrens education. Their husbands, who do not
understand them and with whom they have to struggle to communicate,
do not make the least effort to educate their daughters. She proceeds to an
examination of two cases, both representing extremes condemned by the
author: the family-arranged marriages of young girls; and the uninhibited
choice of husbands by free, but uneducated, women.
Melek explains that in marriage, as a general rule, females are not
expected to have opinions, nor do they have the freedom to choose their
husbands. When she reaches the age of sixteen, suitors begin to compete
for her hand, and if a girl is rich her chances are greatly improved. Such
girls, however, concerned solely with their appearance, invariably understand nothing of the game. Yet leaving the choice to the girls would not
improve things: as in the well-known proverb, a girl might well choose a
penniless musiciana clarinet (zurna) or drum (darbuka) player. Free
and hard-headed girls, in revolt against their families, unwisely throw
themselves into relationships that can only lead to misery and failure. At
all costs, they must be educated in morality and the love of family, and
they must wait until twenty-two or twenty-three to marry. This, according to Melek, would be the best way to render women useful to society,
and mistresses of their households. Marriage must not be based on mere
feeling, hazardous by definition. If marriage is a professional relationship in which love is a contract, it must not be based on rash decision or
passing fancy, but on a calm, sober dialogue of mutual understanding. In
the event that women receive good educations, they must be left free to
choose their marriage partners.
hayriye melek (hun)
325
Education as a Means of Critiquing the Westernization

of Ottoman Muslim Women
Why does education matter? Melek goes on to develop an analysis central
to her body of work, articulating the intersection of the authors cleareyed feminism and her engagement with nationalism.
It is in the first part of Firar, in a section entitled Kadn meselesi
[The woman question] that Melek develops a critique of the alienation
within Ottoman Muslim culture as a result of Western cultural influences. She explains that the same Westerners who speak only of progress and emancipation for Turkish (i.e., Muslim) women, in fact regard
them with a mixture of pity and mockery. Those Muslim women who
are aware of these problems find themselves straddling two worlds: on
the one hand the small circle of feminist activists, resolved to end the
obscurantism of womens conditions; on the other, that group of women
for whom social position provides the material means to be emancipated.
This latter group often remains trapped in a sort of luxurious cocoon of
silks and jewels, though it does procure them a certain status. Yet it is
this very status that lulls them into unconsciousness, insensate to their
sacred duties. By duties, Melek means familial and maternal values, not
the struggle for emancipation. Western culture, with its cultural leisure
(theater, opera, etc.) and its relaxed morals, drives women into a world of
illusion, a seductive mirage. Clearly, Meleks female characters often give
the impression of slipping over the border between fantasy and reality.
Westernization forces women into a painful situation, and a discrepancy
between, on the one hand, illusions offered by the new way of life and its
accompanying aspirations, and, on the other hand, the reality of Ottoman
society and the constrained condition of its women. The resulting malaise
can make their lives close to unbearable.
Melek developed this argument further in August 1918, as World War
I was drawing to a close, in an article on the Muslim woman published
in Trk Yurdu. She begins with the observation that since the revolution
of 1908 a great quantity of writing has dealt with the woman question.
This literature, focusing on the evolution of the condition of women in
America and Europe, emphasizes the necessity of improving Ottoman
womens status. If these efforts had resulted in no concrete change, and if
the results, in certain respects, had even been negative, principle reasons
include profound misunderstandings regarding Ottoman women on the
part of those writing about them. Those writers did not actually study
326
the object of their reflections, argued Melek, but conceived a generic, universal woman, the woman. Womens true condition was entirely misunderstood in studies restricted to generalities and written by authors that
had limited access to Ottoman society. The author establishes a three-part
typology: the woman of Istanbul, of Anatolia, and of Syria. The first category of Stambuliots was further subdivided into three groups: those who
have the status or the means to afford education (terbiye) and instruction
(tahsil) to the extent that these are possible in the Ottoman Empire; those
who have some access to knowledge (malumat) but have not experienced
transformation (tahavvl) in their domestic lives or in their education;
and finally, the ignorant. This classification is clearly based on the function and degree of education.
The first of these Stambuliot sub-categories was that of female intellectuals (mnevver). It was a specific class not to be found, to such a degree,
anywhere else in the Empire. The social model of Istanbul women was
seen as a model for emulation. Yet these women shared only a similar level
of education, and did not form a coherent group. They had overthrown
tradition and belief, had revolted against religion, morality, and family,
against all that had previously been sacred. But because this revolt was not
directed at a precise target, it could be expressed as no more than everyday
resentment. Such women expected a rapid transformation (tahavvl) of
their social and family position and imagined that only superficial differences divided them from Western women. They devoted all their energy
to dressing well and appearing as beautiful as possible. While intelligent,
refined, and disposed to change (tahavvl) and imitation (taklid), these
women were weak-willed and superficial. If they formed part of a small
circle in which women were allowed to accompany their husbands, it was
a circle closed to the rest of society: in the public gardens, theaters, and
restaurants that would tolerate a Christian man with a woman on his arm,
the door was closed to a Muslim man accompanied by his wife. A woman
who had no role to play in public areas and places of entertainment could
earn neither a living nor a place in the public sphere. Women who, upon
reflection, came to understand the truth of their situation, bcame fixated
on the idea that people, society, and even nature acted unjustly toward
them; that they must no longer be reduced to obedience to masculine
laws and a society that permitted them to taste nothing but despotism
(istibdat) and humiliation (mezellet).
Whereas Meleks Hamidian-era heroines dreamed of a double liberation in the political and moral orders, the mnevver feminists of the
hayriye melek (hun)
327
Second Constitutional period constituted a sort of isolated westernized

society of these circles, in which transformation, for the majority of Muslim women, was neither imaginable nor desirable. In Firar, extravagant
westernization with its mocking, denigrating views of Ottoman society
is blamed for driving women to view their own nation and Turkish (i.e.,
Muslim) identity with animosity.
Thus alienated, these refined, even cultivated women were in a precarious position within their own society. Under the surface, society exhibited
all the symptoms of a psychological disorder, a disconnection from reality,
as apparent in 1918 as it had been when Melek first diagnosed it in 1908.
For Melek, of course, the treatment was education, the only way to fight
the twin obstacles of obscurantism and westernization.
Revolution and Evolution
In her works Hayriye Melek examined the ideas of evolution and revolution; the latter was conceived in two different ways. As ihtilal, it was both
the synonym and consequence of revolt (isyan), the internal upheaval
and confusion (teevv) experienced by educated women after 1908. As
inkilap, it meant social and cultural change, the revolution that began in
the schools and in the bosom of families. Shattering the imagined divide
between public and private space, she identified the line separating the
city streetwhere a woman was powerless to impose her willfrom two
institutions where change was possible: family and school. To understand
what sort of change was possible, it was necessary to refer to the second
category of Stambuliots, those who had access to some learning but not
to the benefit of formal education (tahsil). These women knew little of
the intellectual class revolt against tradition. When they rejected tradition, these middle- and lower-class women did it for material considerations alone, i.e., they sought the opportunity to work. They were raised
in families where leisure was rare and moral and religious fervor (taassup)
reigned. Often against the wishes of their families they found employment,
working as teachers (muallime) or laborers. This group could be divided,
according to Melek, into two groups with disparate destinies.
The first, women encountering the liberties of the workplace, could face
dramatic reactions. Suddenly in contact with men of uncertain morality in
offices, administration buildings, and schools, they could sink into moral
and psychic confusion or despair.
328
The second, who had often received a primary education at the rdiye
schools, were aspiring, ambitious, and sought to improve themselves as
autodidacts. Melek explained that for this group there was no brusque
and violent (edit) change (tahavvl), no revolt or upheaval, but rather a
natural (tabii) and gradual (tedrici) evolution (tekaml). More tied to the
past, more conservative in spirit, they suffered less of the confusion of cultivated women. Their ideas were simpler, but their spirits more balanced,
their nerves more solid and their wills stronger. They devoted themselves
to their children, and while they were satisfied with neither society nor
their condition, they were not victims of the morbid impotence (marazi)
of the women of the upper class. Melek concluded by saying that if these
women could overcome their inexperience and dissatisfaction, if they
could complete the process of self-improvement, there was a chance they
could become the most useful group of women to the nation, its most
qualified and capable members.
The Caucasus, a Literary Motif?
As described above, Zhre-i Elem recounts the impossible love of two
relatives, Osman Hamdi and Beriya, both Circassians. The youth and the
young girl, each in his/her room, seek imaginary escape in reading and
dreaming of the Caucasus. As Osman Gndz notes, in literature of the
Second Constitutional monarchy the Caucasus had become a nostalgic
memory and was no longer a real place; when evoked it was in reference to throwing off enslavement and the struggle for the abolition of
slavery. smail Parlatr argues that these themes were not original, but
in fact a reprise of Tanzmt period literature, in particular the works of
Samipaazade Sezai (Sergzet) and Ahmet Midhat Efendi (Esaret, Firkat,
Faik Bey, etc.). As Melek intended her work for a larger public not limited to the Circassian community, it is not surprising that the Caucasus
and its countryside served as little more than a decorative element; it is
more astonishing, however, that this same treatment was widespread in
the journal Guaze as wellthus this attitude was not peculiar to Melek
alone but also applied to other Ottoman writers of Circassian origins who,
like her, had been educated in Western culture.
Seventeen years later, in 1927, Hayriye Melek published a story entitled La Voix du Vautour [The cry of the vulture] in Promthe, a French
journal organized by political migrs from Russia. The story recounts the
wandering of its female narrator in the solitude of the splendid forests
hayriye melek (hun)
329
of the Caucasus, in search of scattered traces of a past life. An apparition in the form of a young girl in traditional Circassian dress invites her
into a house. From there she hears the foreboding cry of a vulture coming
from Mt. Elbrouz, and the rattling of Prometheus chains from the cave
where he was imprisoned. In the future, the Caucasus would be empty
of its inhabitants and nature is called upon to evoke a past life, a world,
now disappeared, that had existed before mass emigration to the Ottoman Empire. The death of Circassian civilization echoes in the cry of the
vulture. If one day Prometheus were to break his chains it would be as
the breaking of the entire worlds chains. The legacy of Circassian civilization is that of teaching liberty to mankind. It is in accomplishing this
universal mission, in liberating the worlds peoples, that the descendents
of the mountain Circassians of the Caucasus would rediscover the sense
of their lost civilization.
Meleks article echoes one published previously by Ahmet Midhat
Efendi in the journal Krkambar that praises the Ciracassians love of liberty, form of government, and way of life, in a critique of the unjust Ottoman order, its abuse of authority. Elite Circassian Ottomans came from a
society strictly regulated by a code of relations, the xabze, in which the status of women (provided they were not slaves) and the relations between
the sexes seemed much more egalitarian and moderntherefore more
Westernthan that of the Ottoman society around them. These Circassians often had divided feelings, combining this bridge toward modernity
with a backward-looking instinct to preserveif not return tothe past.
This ambivalence is reflected in the conservative moral tendencies in
Hayriyes writings.
The Circassian National Cause
On 12 March 1920, Hayriye Melek, as editor-in-chief, authored the front
page editorial for Diyane [Our mother], the new organ of the Circassian
Womens Mutual Aid Society (erkes Kadnlar Teavun Cemiyeti). That
issue included a lengthy essay by Meleks husband, Met zzet, on connections between Circassian culture and Hittite civilization and Greek
mythology, and an article on the social role of women by Sezah Poh, the
young and tomboyish daughter of the journals owner, Nazmi Paa. Meleks
editorial recounts the long struggle of the Circassians against the Russians
and the martial qualities they demonstrated. It emphasizes that while her
peoplea small nation, courageous yet weakwaged a vital battle for
330
survival, it had to be fought by means other than violence. It was the mission of Circassian women to temper that masculine tendency to choose
war as the means of confrontation in the national endeavor. Melek argues
that the greatest victories would not be those of the battlefield but won in
other areas and with other arms, namely those of culture and education.
Melek invited Circassian youth to study, publicize, and promote their
nation in all cultural domains (history, linguistics, arts, music, social life,
etc.); that she had in mind the sort of heroic literature she had published
in Guaze cannot be doubted. The war did not incite this feminist to harden
and militarize her discourse, rather the contrary. She had seen with her
own eyes the predicament of the North Caucasian diaspora community
which, having lost interest in the geographical homeland tore itself apart
during the national struggle that had erupted in Turkey, with Circassians
fighting on both sides as partisans of the Sultan and of the Kemalist rebellion. Unfortunately, not a single issue of the journal remains.
The Circassian womens association created in 1918 by five Circassian women9 and headed by Melek, and the Circassian school opened in
Beikta (Akaretler) are known more for their reputations than for their
activities. The authorities in Istanbul from the start regarded the association with some distrust and it seemed to serve as a screen for Circassian
political activism, particularly after the closure, in 1919, of the North Caucasus Association (imali Kafkasya Cemiyeti) by the English occupation
force, on charges of colluding with Turkish unionists. The school, for its
part, received and sheltered Circassians who had landed in Istanbul with
the remnants of Wrangels White Army in 19221923.
School and Education, Matrices of the National Project
In addition to political activism, the association devoted its energies also
to its avowed purpose, namely education and social aid, mainly through
the Circassian school opened in Beikta.10 The school was closed in 1923
9Beside Hayriye Melek and Sezah Poh, three names are of interest: Emine, the wife
of retired Ottoman general Reit Paa; Faika, wife of an Egyptian paa, erkes shak; and
Makbule, wife of an Ottoman deputy, Mazhar Mfit. Emine became the general secretary
of the association and Sezah Poh the treasurer.
10The school in Beikta comprised six grades (in total 150180 students) and was innovative in three regards: it was practically coeducational, it offered a nursery school for
children of four to six years of age, and it taught the Circassian language using the Latin
alphabet, an accomplishment of the erkes Ittihad ve Teavun Cemiyeti in 1908. The subjects (language, literature, geography of the Caucasus, and history) concerning Circassian
hayriye melek (hun)
331
by order of the ministry of education. The school administrator, Sezah Poh

tried in vain to prevent the closure, but her persistence only earned her
some months in prison. The school and association archives were transferred to the home of Pohs father Nazmi Paa, but were seized and sent
to Ankara in 1925 as part of a trial regarding contravention of the hat law
in which he was found guilty.11 Meanwhile, in 1923, in the Manyas region
where the legendary Circassian leader erkes Ethem12 had raised many
irregular troops to join the Kemalist forces during the War of Independence, the entire population of thirteen Circassian settlements, including
Hacosman, Meleks native village, were deported to eastern Turkey.
The nascent Republic forbade every expression of non-Turkish
particularly Circassiannationalism, because of certain Circassians
involvement in internal revolts. The treason of erkes Ethem, moreover,
stigmatized the entire community. A list of 150 blacklisted figures created
by the new Republican regime included a majority of Circassians. In this
climate, Melek ceased writing on the Circassians and the North Caucasus.
The books of Mehmet Fetgerey, prolific author of the national Circassian
movement, were seized and banned in December 1926 by a decision of the
Council of Ministers. Melek seems to have put aside the woman question
as well during this period.
Did the leaders of the Circassian movement actually subscribe to the
Kemalist reforms and to the absorption of the Turkish feminist movement by the Kemalist regime? In the absence of sufficient sources, it is
difficult to address this question. But the silence of the writer, who soon
departed from Turkey, speaks volumes. It is possible to believe that Melek,
culture were taught in the Circassian language; the others, including Ottoman and French
languages, geography, drawing, music, dance, and gymnastics, in Ottoman. The school also
housed a confectionary that employed Circassian women in need.
11 The law for wearing hats was issued on 25 November 1925. This law (cf. Article 1) provides that Members the Great National Assembly of Turkey, officials and the employees
in public, private and local administrations, are obliged to wear the hat that the Turkish
nation has adopted. The general headgear of the people in Turkey is the apka (hat), and
the persistence of any habit in opposition to the hat is prohibited by the government.
(Cf. TBMM Zabt Ceridesi (1925)).
12erkes Ethem (18861948), Ethem the Circassian, was the founder and leader of a
militia force, Kuvayy Seyyare (Mobile forces), fighting, in 19191920, the Greek Army that
had landed on the shores of western Anatolia. His militia also repressed local revolts
some of them paradoxically conducted by North Caucasiansagainst the Anatolian uprising headed by Mustafa Kemal. Ethem refused to put his forces under the authority of
Ankaras National Assembly and merge with the regular army. He tried in vain to continue
fighting as an independant force but finally surrendered to the Greek army and was therefore stigmatized by Ankara as a traitor.
332
whose family-oriented feminism supported reform but not through coercive means, was wary of the new Kemalist regime while approving some
developments, for example, in womens education.
The Preface to Zeynep: Speaking of Egypt to Speak of Turkey?
It was with Zeynep, a strange book published in 1926, that Melek broke
her silence. Remarkably, this book did not deal with the Caucasus or the
Turkish Republic; nor did the author choose the final years of the Ottoman Empire as a background. Rather the story takes place in Egypt in
1919. In a long preface, Melek retraces the history of Egyptian nationalism
and the struggle for the rights of Egyptian women. She outlines the official genealogy of the national movement, beginning with Mustafa Kmil
Paa, then Mehmet Ferit (Mohammed Farid) Bey, and finishing with Saad
Zaghll, who is presented as not the head of a party (the Wafd), but of a
nation, and with whom Melek was said to have become acquainted while
in Egypt. The struggle for the rights of women is presented as a modest,
but real, part of the Egyptian national movement.
For the author, there existed in Egypt a real class of educated women,
intellectuals (mnnever) conscious of their mission and willing. Her
choice of words recalls an article published in Trk Yurdu in August 1918
during the Second Constitutional monarchy, in which she had reached
the opposite conclusion. In passing, Melek invokes the work of Qsim
Amnthe Ottoman public knew him from a translation of his Hrriyet-i
Nisvan [Womens freedom] published in Istanbul in 1913signaling to
readers familiar with the history of Ottoman feminism that Egyptian
feminism also had a remarkable history. But above all, she highlights the
numerous women, many whom she claimed to have met, who played a
pioneering role in Egyptian feminism: in the front rank was Malak Hifn
Nsif (18861918), who represented women at the Egyptian National Congress of Heliopolis (1911), followed by reformers like Hud Sharw, Saiza
Nabarawi, Nabawiyya Ms, or even Ester Fanous.
The Egyptian womens movement is praised for its contribution to
what Melek calls the events (hadisat), or revolution (ihtilal), of 1919. She
means, of course, the massive demonstrations of March 1919, an uprising
that began in Cairo and then spread to the rest of the country (leaving
800 dead), and that led the British to exile Zaghll to Malta. As mentioned
above, Melek had joined Halide Edip in the 1919 demonstrations in Istanbul protesting the landing of the Greeks at Izmir. Given the omission of
hayriye melek (hun)
333
this particular event in her introduction to Zeynep it may be that Melek

was hinting at her break with Ottoman nationalism in 1920. Since 1908,
she had embodied the tendency of Teal-i Nisvan Cemiyeti and the feminist, nationalist line of Halide Edip; Edip also, as revealed in a reference
to the poem Qhesfetxid13 inspired the Circassian movement of those
same years.
Borrowing a plot line used in other works, Zeynep tells the history of
an impossible love in the context of a love triangle against the backdrop
of nationalist mobilization in Egypt of 1919. Ahmed is an Egyptian patriot
despite an education received in English schools and a fluently Englishspeaking mother. He is married to blond Nadia, a Russian princess. Though
far from her fatherland, the latter loves Egypt enough to convince Ahmed
to remain here despite his desire to live abroad. Nadia carries within her
the sorrow of being without a homeland. Before he met Nadia, Ahmed had
been in love with Zeynep, an Egyptian aristocrat with a strong personality
then engaged in the nationalist struggleand in love with Ahmed since
her childhood. One day the couple encounters Zeynep by chance, and
from that moment Nadia realizes that she can never rival the Egyptian
woman in Ahmeds affections; Ahmed must love her only out of pity. In a
letter she announces her intention to leave him and Egypt for love of her
own country. Then, binding herself hand and foot she plunges into the
Nile. Ahmed never learns the truth of Nadias suicide. Devastated by the
news of her letter, he throws himself into the national struggle. In March
1919, on the eve of the great demonstration in Cairo demanding the return
of Saad Zaghll, Ahmed pathetically announces he is going to his death.
The next day he and Zeynep join ranks marching against the English.
Zeynep is truly the story of the sublimation of love within the nationalist struggle, and carries the implication that all militant political nationalism lies atop psychological frustration. Melek chose Egypt in order
to avoid explicit mention of the Turkish struggle for liberation and its
historic leader, Mustafa Kemal. She also chose to speak once more of
the impossibility of communication between beings so different as men
and women.
How can one classify Hayriye Meleks feminism? Her diatribes against
feminists who broke with traditional values (family, religion, social morality) puts her in a class with the non-liberal, non-radical proponents of
13Hace Yedq Kue Seyn Tme, Qhesefetxid [Didactic poems] (Istanbul: Matbaa-
Osmaniye imali Kafkas Cemiyeti Ktphanesi 35, 1335/1919), 58.
334
family-centered Ottoman feminism.14 If she arrived at the conclusion

that men and women were profoundly different, this conclusion followed
closely on her analysis of impossible love and marriage. Her conservatism
also may have been partly tactical, in view of the combination of forces
she describes which, in the Ottoman society of that period, prevented
women from going any further than those alienated and isolated women
at the forefront of the cause. Melek clearly opposed sudden change, and
favored a gradual progression in womens rights and reforms.
Whatever inequality exists between men and women rests on differences in nature; yet this inequality is nearly imperceptible in the malefemale couples of her works. Melek remains, moreover, as apparent from
her battle for education, a supporter of equality in rights. This landed
property-owner and rentier, having never been in need of work or outside
support, is witness to an era, the 1910s, in which women began to enter the
world of wage work en masse. She recognizes the stakes, the opportunities, and the risks of social change, and is sharply aware of the roles different social actors in the struggle for womens rights can playand puts her
hopes not in the well-born elite, but in the lower and middle classes.
In fact, Melek took care to distinguish between the feminist avantguard as a cultural avant-guard and the lower classes as a social force
in the broader womens movement. She reported that while in Ottoman
Aleppo, she was more heavily veiled than usual: for in so doing the distance between herself and her hoped-for listeners would be minimized,
making it easier for them to empathize with her example. As discussed
above, her critique of feminine alienation rested on a denunciation of
the consequences of the sudden and excessively westernized education
of young Muslim girls such as her former fellow-students at Notre Dame
de Sion.
In the pilot Circassian school she had, for once, the occasion to put her
ideas into practice, following in the footsteps of the Egyptian feminists she
envied. She depicted in her stories heroes and heroines struggling against
two despotisms, one political, the other sexist. Forgetting the deception of
love in favor of engagement with the national cause, she denounced the
alienation that went with nationalism as she had denounced the alienation of women. For her this was not contradictory; like Halide Edip who
14For an analysis of this more conservative Ottoman feminism, see Nicole A. N. M.
van Os, Osmanl Mslmanlarnda Feminizm [Feminism among Ottoman Muslims], in
Cumhuriyete Devreden Dnce Miras. Tanzimat ve Merutiyetin Birikimi, ed. Mehmet .
Alkan (Istanbul: letiim, 2001), 335347.
hayriye melek (hun)
335
was, if not her guide, at least a point of reference, she managed to produce
real coherence between the nationalistic engagement and the womens
cause. In both domains she defended the necessity of fighting for education and culture by political means, not by force of arms. The ten years
of military conflict from the Balkan Wars to World War I to the War of
Independence did not turn this nationalist feminist into a helmeted Amazon, calling on mothers to sacrifice their children. But in the manner of
her last heroine, Nadia, she bore the sorrow of those who are exiles from
the homeland. Parallel to institutional activities her commitment to education in and promotion of Circassian culture also manifested itself in
her choice of marriage partners and paradoxically in her literary silence
and exile in France, showing that she never renounced the quest for a
vanished past while insisting on the necessity of liberty.
336
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. Zulm [Oppression]. Guaze 11 (15 June 1911), 8.
. Diyane 1 (12 March 1336 /1920).
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Mnevver Bir Trk Hanm Ressam Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendinin Mutlakiyet, Merutiyet ve
Cumhuriyet Hatralar [Souvenirs of absolutism, second constitutional monarchy and
republic periods by an intellectual Turkish painter, Naciye Neyyal Hanmefendi]. Istanbul: Pnar Yaynlar, March 2000.
Os, Nicole A. N. M. van. Osmanl Mslmanlarnda Feminizm [Feminism among Ottoman Muslims], in Cumhuriyete Devreden Dnce Miras. Tanzimat ve Merutiyetin Birikimi, edited by Mehmet . Alkan, 335347, Modern Trkiyede siyasi dnce 1. Istanbul:
letiim, 2001.
zen, Saadet. Yz Elli Yln Tan. Notre Dame de Sion [A hundred-fifty-year testimony.
Notre Dame de Sion]. Istanbul: Yap Kredi yay., 2006.
hayriye melek (hun)
337
Parlatr, smail. Tanzimat Edebiyatnda Klelik. Ankara: Trk Tarih Kurumu Yaynlar,
1987.
Ramazan, Musa. Bir Kafkas Gmenin Anlar [Memoirs of a Caucasian migrant]. Istanbul:
amil Eitim ve Kltr Vakf, 1997.
Tme, Hace Yedq Kue Seyn. Qhesefetxid [Didactic poems]. Istanbul: Matbaa- Osmaniye,
imali Kafkas Cemiyeti Ktphanesi 35, 1335/1919.
Toprak, Zafer. The Family, Feminism and the State during the Young Turk Period: 1908
1918, in Premire Rencontre Internationale sur lEmpire ottoman et la Turquie moderne,
edited by Edhem Eldem, 439452. Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1991.
Notes on Contributors
Elif Ekin Akit is an associate professor at the Department of Political
Science and Public Administration in Ankara University and currently
teaches Ottoman, Turkish, and womens history. She completed her PhD
at the Department of History of Binghamton University with the thesis
Girls Education and the Paradoxes of Modernity and Nationalism in the
Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic. She is the editor of a
feminist e-journal: -fe journal. Akits current research and publications
concern the gendered significance of space in historical neighborhoods
and female readership of heroic stories. Among her recent publications
are The Womens Quarters in the Historical Hammam, Gender, Place,
Culture, 18, (2011); Harem Education and Heterotopic Imagination,
Gender and Education 23, (2011); The Usage of Film in Womens History,
Womens Memory: The Problem of Sources, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011); Politics of Decay and Spatial Resistance, Social &
Cultural Geography 11, (2010); Fatma Aliyes Stories: Ottoman Marriages
Beyond the Harem, Journal of Family History 35, (2010).
Anastasia Falierou is adjunct professor in the Faculty of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens. She received her PhD in history
from the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (HSS) in Paris.
She has worked as a fellow in the French Institute for Anatolian Studies
in Istanbul (IFA) and as an instructor in the University of Baheehir,
Istanbul. Her scholarly interests concern Ottoman social and cultural history, gender history, Balkan history, history of Modern Turkey and the
Middle East. Her recent publications are From the Ottoman Empire to
the Turkish Republic: Ottoman Turkish Womens Clothing between Tradition and Modernity, in From Traditional Attire to Modern Dress: Modes of
Identification, Modes of Recognition in the Balkans (XVIthXXth Centuries),
ed. C. Vintil-Ghiulescu (New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2011), and La rvolution jeune-turque de 1908, une rvolution
de la condition fminine dans lEmpire ottoman? in Livresse de la libert:
la rvolution de 1908 dans lEmpire ottoman, ed. F. Georgeon (Belgium:
Peeters de Louvain, 2012).
Franois Georgeon is retired Director of Research at CNRS and Director
of UMR-8032, Turkish and Ottoman Studies (CNRS-EHESS-Collge de
340
notes on contributors
France). He has been teaching Ottoman history in the cole des Hautes
tudes en Sciences Sociales since 1985 and has written several books and
articles on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Among his recent publications are Abdlhamid II. Le sultan calife (18761909) (Paris: Fayard, 2003)
[Turkish translation, 2006]; Abdrrechid Ibrahim, Un Tatar au Japon. Voyage en Asie (19081910), translated from Ottoman Turkish, presented and
annotated in collaboration with Ik Tamdoan (Paris: Sindbad-Actes Sud,
2004); Sous le Signe des Reformes. tat et Socit de lEmpire Ottoman
la Turquie Kemaliste (17891939) (Istanbul: ISIS, 2009); Les Ottomans et
Le Temps (edited volume with Frderic Hitzel) (Leiden: Brill, 2011); and
Livresse de la libert: la rvolution de 1908 dans lEmpire ottoman, ed.
F. Georgeon (Belgium: Peeters de Louvain, 2012).
Catherine Mayeur Jaouen is agrege in history and professor of modern
and contemporary Islamic history in the Institut National des Langues et
des Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris. Her research interests focus
on the cult of saints in the Muslim world, Muslim reformism in connection with the Arabic language, the family in Islam and the womens question in the Arab world from the end of the nineteenth century to the
1940s. Among her publications are Plerinages dgypte, Histoire de la pit
copte et musulmane (XVeXXe sicles) (Paris: Editions de lcole des hautes
tudes en sciences sociales 107, 2005); LAnimal en islam, in collaboration
with Mohammed Hocine Bekheira et Jacqueline Sublet (Paris: Les Indes
Savantes, 2005); Le corps et le sacr en Orient musulman, REMMM ns 113
114, Edisud, November 2006 (in collaboration with Bernard Heyberger).
M. Erdem Kabaday obtained his BSc in economics from Middle East Technical University, Ankara in 1995, and his MSc, in the same discipline, from
the University of Vienna in 1999. Since April 2006, he has been working in
the History Department of Istanbul Bilgi University and has completed his
PhD dissertation on Ottoman labor history at the Middle Eastern Studies
Department of Munich University (2008). He is now an associate professor at the same institution. Kabadays research currently focuses on statesubject relations in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire with a
special emphasis on labor and ethno-religious history.
Hasmik Khalapyan holds a PhD in history from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. The topic of her dissertation was Womens
Question and Womens Movement among Ottoman Armenians, 1875
1914. Her recent publications include Womens Education, Labour or
341
Charity: Significance of Needlework Among Ottoman Armenians, Womens History Magazine (Summer 2006) and Kendine Ait Bir Feminizm:
Zabel Yesayann Hayat ve Faaliyetleri [A feminism of her own: Zabel
Yessayans life and activism], trans. Maral Aktokmakyan, in Bir Adalet
Feryad: Osmanldan Trkiyeye Be Ermeni Feminist Yazar 18621933 [A
cry for justice, five Armenian feminist writers from the Ottoman Empire
to the Turkish Republic, 18621933], ed. Lerna Ekmekcioglu and Melissa
Bilal (Istanbul: Aras Yaynlar, 2006).
Duygu Kksal is an associate professor at the Atatrk Institute for Modern
Turkish History, Boazii University, Istanbul. She received her PhD in
political science at the University of Texas at Austin and has written on
the social history of Turkish Republican literature, early Republican cultural policy and plastic arts, as well as the history of early Republican
women. She is currently working on the social history of late Ottoman
women and children, and modernism in early Republican culture.
Elif Mahir Metinsoy received her PhD from the department of Cultures
et Socits en Europe at the Universit de Strasbourg (France) and the
Atatrk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Boazii University in
2012. She wrote her dissertation on Ottoman Turkish womens everyday
politics during World War I. Her current research is on the social and
economic effects of the continuous wars from 1912 to 1922 on Ottoman
women and on the impact of modernization and nationalism on Turkish
etiquette, Ottoman womens fashions, and Turkish feminism from 1908
to 1945.
Rachel Simon received her PhD from Hebrew University at Jerusalem. Her
research focuses on the late Ottoman period, with special reference to
Libya, Palestine, gender, and education. Among her numerous publications are the books Libya between Ottomanism and Nationalism (1987) and
Change Within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya (1992). She is currently one of the editors of the second and online edition of the Encyclopedia on Jews in the Islamic World (Brill). Among the entries she contributed
to the encyclopedia are Printers and Printing Houses, Journalism, and
a list of Jewish journals in the Islamic world.
Burcu Pelvanolu is a faculty member at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul. She received her PhD in contemporary Turkish art at Mimar
Sinan Fine Arts University. She has several publications on the history of
342
the plastic arts in Turkey and contemporary art. Among her more recent
publications is A Turning Point of Turkish Plastic Arts: Hale (Salih) Asaf
(Istanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar, 2007) and Fsun Onur, Documenta 13 Publications (Kassel, 2012).
Alexandre Toumarkine is currently a research fellow at the Orient Institut
in Istanbul. He is an agrg in history and has worked as the scientific
director of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in Istanbul (IFA).
He received his PhD from Paris IV-Sorbonne University. He has studied
the history of the Ottoman Empire and contemporary Turkey, focusing on
migrations in the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea and Caucasus regions.
His current areas of interest include the social history of war in the Ottoman Empire, the relationship between state and society in contemporary
Turkey, and the history of science and its relation to history.
D. Fatma Tre is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration in Ankara University. She received her
PhD from the Atatrk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Boazii
University; and her MA from the Department of Turkish Literature and
Language at the same university. The title of her PhD dissertation is
Images of Istanbul Women in the 1920s. Her recent publications include
Cinsel Politika Kuram ve Kadn Sylemi [Sexual politics and female narrative], Szden Yazya: Edebiyat ncelemeleri (Istanbul: Boazii niversitesi Yaynlar, 1994), 717; Alafranga Bir Hanm [An la Franca woman],
Toplumsal Tarih (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf Yurt Yaynlar, 1997), 4246; zgrlkle Gelen Mstehcenlik [Obscenity out of freedom], Tarih ve Toplum
(Istanbul: letiim Yaynlar, 1999); and Mahrem Tarih [Secret history]
Tarih ve Toplum, 2001.
zgr Tresay is currently teaching at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, at the Department of Political Science. He received his PhD from the
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris)
in 2008. His dissertation is on Ebzziya Tevfik (18491913), a renowned
Ottoman intellectual of the second half of the nineteenth century. He has
published several chapters and articles on late Ottoman intellectual history in scholarly journals such as Turcica, tudes Balkaniques, Cahiers Pierre
Belon, Anthropology of the Middle East, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklamlar, Mteferrika, Kebike, and Toplumsal Tarih. His current research is focused on
multiple aspects of the social, political, and intellectual history of the late
Ottoman Empire including topics such as the echoes of the Dreyfus Affair
343
in the Ottoman Empire, the introduction of spiritism into the Ottoman

Empire in the 1910s, French primary sources of the history of printing
and publishing in Ottoman Turkish, the socio-genesis of Ottoman Turkish journalism between 1860 and 1873, biography writing in the late Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire and postcolonial studies, and the use
of Western historical time in Ottoman history textbooks.
Emine Tutku Vardal received her PhD from the Atatrk Institute for
Modern Turkish History at Boazii University, Istanbul. Her dissertation
concerns Ottoman female labor in late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury Selanik. She has worked as an assistant for Istanbul Bilgi University Center for Migration Research and as an instructor in Yldz Technical
University. She has taught several courses on various branches of the
humanities. She is currently teaching political sociology and political history at the Political Science Department of Istanbul Aydn University. She
has translated a number of books from English into Turkish.
INDEX
Abduh (Muhammad)302, 314 n. 39
Abdullah Cevdet88 n. 11, 102
Adam74, 195 n. 51
Ahmet Cevdet Pasha136
Ahmet Mithad Efendi156, 160, 328329
Ahmet Rza88 n. 11, 160
Akbaba250251, 256257, 260
Aleppo7 n. 11, 35 n. 20, 118, 334
Alexandria118, 206, 298
Alliance Israelite Universelle [also when
the text has just Alliance or AIU]18,
118123, 125126
America19, 22, 167, 173 n. 1, 281283, 285,
288292, 294, 325
Amn (Qsim)229, 230 n. 15, 297, 303,
306, 310311, 332
Ankara97, 137, 139, 167, 173, 262, 273,
320, 331, 339340, 342
Apollo203
Arevelian Tatron40, 41 n. 40
Arousyak4043
Artemis43
Ak- Memnu156
Athens206, 339
Austro-Hungarian Empires69
Awwd (Victoria)300
Aydede250251, 259, 262, 264, 267, 270,
271 n. 46
Baghdad116 n. 30, 126 n. 67
Beyolu104, 189, 260
Bilgi Yurdu I90
Bin Bir Buse, En en En uh Hikayeler
(a Thousand and One Kisses)179, 185
Bitola206
Bosnia-Herzegovina68
Bosphoris219220
Bosphorus104, 258260, 262, 298, 318 n. 5
Boston167, 206
Brown, Kenneth281, 282 n. 1, 285
Bulgarian Exarchate20, 202, 210
Bulgarians214
Bursa34 nn. 1415, 67, 137, 159 n. 16, 189
Byou Zandyon36 n. 22, 37, 44
Cairo42 n. 51, 72 n. 25, 118, 120, 297299,
301, 304 n. 13, 332333
Calliope203
Cappadocia212
Castelorizo206
Cemal Nadir250
Central School for Girls (Kentriko
Parthenagogeio)208
Cevri Kalfa Mektebi159
Charitable Society of the Ladies of Nevehir
in Constantinople The Resurrection
(Filoptohos Adelfotita ton Kirion tis
Neapoleos stin Konstantinoupoli
I Anastasis Nevehir)212
Chios206
Constantinople34 n. 12, 3536, 40, 42
n. 51, 43, 202, 205, 207 n. 12, 209, 212,
214 n. 33, 219220, 241
Corfu206
Crete206
Dalloportas210
Damascus120
Drlmuallimt136, 159160, 229
Demet88, 191 n. 35, 318 n. 6
Democrat Party147148
Diyogen208 n. 15
Dumas, Alexandre42 n. 51
Dussap, Serbouhi3132
Ebuzziya Tevfik226227, 231245, 342
Edirne67, 118, 206
Efthifron210
Egypt7, 22, 33, 42 n. 51, 91 n. 22, 118, 126
n. 69, 140, 195, 237 n. 45, 297298, 300,
302305, 307, 311, 332333
Elaz138
Emine Semiye87
Erenky99 n. 43, 104
Eurydice20, 202203, 205, 212220
Ev Hocas90, 95
Evangellidou Virginia220
Eve60, 112 n. 18, 189 n. 29, 213, 273, 333
Eyb68
Fcia ve Ak Serisi (Disaster and Love
Series)186
Fatih91
Fatma Aliye87, 102, 133, 135, 160, 229
n. 14, 230, 240, 243
Fausto Zonaro157, 162
346
index
Felatun Bey ile Rakm Efendi156

Feshane16, 6572, 7476, 7879
Forty Churches (Krklareli)206
France34 n. 15, 67, 71 n. 21, 89, 122, 141,
173, 274, 304 n. 16, 320321, 323, 335,
340341
Freud294
Galata25, 69, 102, 203, 207 n. 13
Galemkearian, Zarouhi37
Gen Kadn [1918]90
Gen Kadn [1919]90, 98
Genlik Demetleri (Bouquets of Youth)
185186
Geneva206
Germany15, 141142, 147, 173
Girls Industrial Schools18, 134, 138
Gitar208
God47, 168, 203, 213, 256, 293
Goumbassian, Mariam41
Great Britain35, 297
Greece42 n. 51, 207 n. 14, 214 n. 34, 241,
282, 293
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate202,
214 n. 33
Greek Philological Syllogos of
Constantinople (en Konstantinoupoli
Ellinikos Philologikos Syllogos)209
Greek-Ottoman102, 281282, 290
Gll Agop251
Hades203
Hale (Salih) Asaf157, 342
Halid Ziya (Uaklgil)156, 166 n. 38
Halide Edip135, 160, 307, 320, 332334
Hlide Nusret [Zorlutuna]17, 90, 92, 94,
9899, 105
Halil Edhem160 n. 22, 161
Hamd (Abd al-Ham)311
Hanm77, 90, 104
Hanmlar lemi90
Hifn Nsif (Kawkab)304
Hifn Nsif (Malak)2223, 298314, 332
Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden [also
when just HV]117 n. 31, 119120, 123
Hrachia, Azniv37, 41 n. 40, 42
Ioannina206
Iraq110, 112 nn. 1819, 116 n. 30, 125 n. 64,
126 nn. 67, 69
tihd102
nas Darlfnunu160
nas Sanayi-i Nefise-i Mekteb-i lisi157
n. 15, 159, 161 n. 24, 166 n. 40, 167 n. 43
nci90, 99, 250

smet nn147
smet Paa Kz Enstits139
stanbul16, 1920, 22, 44, 49, 65, 6770,
76 n. 32, 79, 91, 94, 9798, 99 n. 43, 102,
104 n. 51, 116 n. 28, 137, 157, 159162, 164,
166, 173174, 176178, 179 n. 9, 185, 202,
207 n. 12, 232, 250252, 255256, 258260,
264, 266267, 269270, 273275, 281282,
285, 287, 290, 293, 297, 307, 311, 318,
320321, 326, 330, 332, 339343
zmir7 n. 11, 35 n. 20, 43, 51 n. 14, 6667,
102, 116 n. 28, 125 n. 65, 137139, 144,
146147, 202 n. 5, 205, 285 n. 7, 320, 332
znik206
Jerusalem110 n. 5, 112 n. 18, 115, 117 n. 30,
118, 120, 123 n. 54, 124 n. 60, 341
Kadn77, 88, 89 n. 16, 90, 94 n. 29, 95
n. 32, 98, 99 n. 43, 104 n. 52, 135 n. 6,
145 n. 45, 146 n. 59, 157 nn. 9, 15, 161
n. 24, 168 n. 50, 175, 185 nn. 10, 13, 186
nn. 15, 1819, 189 n. 25, 201 n. 3, 230
n. 16, 240 n. 53, 318 n. 6, 319, 323, 325,
342
Kadnlar Dnys47, 8990, 102, 144
Karagz227, 250, 258, 260, 262, 264, 273
Karatheodoris, Alexander207 n. 14
Kassapis, Theodor21, 207 n. 15
Kavala16, 48 n. 3, 5054, 5658, 60
Kitromilides206, 285
Ktena-Leontias Emilia202
Kypseli208
Ladies Charitable Society of Beikta
(Filoptohos Adelfotitis ton Kirion tou
Diplokioniou)212
Ladies Charitable Society of Byk
Dere The Charity (Filoptohos
Adelfortis Kirion Megalou Revmatos
I Filantropia)212
Ladies Charitable Society of Chalkidon
(Filoptohos Adelfotis ton Kirion tis
Halkidonos)211
Ladies Charitable Society of Stavrodromi
(Filoptohos Adelfotis ton Kirion tou
Stavrodromiou)209, 211212
Lady Pardoe70
Larissa206
Latife Hanm145
Leontias Sappho145
Libya18, 109112, 119, 125 nn. 62, 65, 126
nn. 6768, 341
index
Locke, John284
Louys43
Lutf al-Sayyid (Ahmad)43
Macedonia52, 56, 214 n. 34
MacFarlene66
Madamme Rafael159
Magdalene217, 218 n. 44
Malakopi212
Manisa137
Marseille206
Mavrogenis Spyros210
Mehasin88, 185 n. 10, 318, 321322
Mehmed Rauf185
Mehmet Cavid [Minister of Finance]102
Mihri (Mfik) Hanm19, 155, 157,
159162, 164, 166169
Mitilini206
Moliere40 n. 35, 271
Morocco126
Mousouros Stephanos207 n. 14
Ms (Nabawiyya)2223, 298304,
306307, 308 n. 27, 309314, 332
Mustafa Kemal145, 233, 331 n. 12, 333
Muuru Han203
Mfide Ferid160
Mfide Kadri159
Namk Kemal88, 160, 232, 321
Nsif (Hifn)2223, 298314, 332
Nsif (Majd al-Dn)304, 306 n. 21, 313
Nazl Ecevit161
New York167, 241, 281, 293
Nezhe Muhiddin11 n. 18, 91
Orpheus203
Ottoman Empire12, 69, 12, 22, 32 n. 8,
3334, 38, 44, 49, 51, 53, 5657, 6568,
70 n. 20, 71, 73, 79, 8588, 90, 91 n. 22, 92
n. 28, 94 n. 29, 105, 109, 112 n. 20, 113114,
115 n. 25, 116 n. 28, 117118, 120, 122, 127,
133, 145, 155, 201 n. 3, 202, 205206,
207 n. 14, 209, 214, 220221, 225, 228,
233234, 242243, 251, 252 n. 7, 268, 281,
283285, 290, 297298, 302, 326, 329,
332, 339343
Ottoman Theater3940, 41 n. 40, 42
n. 51, 251
Palestine115 n. 27, 116 n. 28, 118 n. 35,
119120, 122123, 124 n. 60
Papazian, Aghavni40
Pera36 n. 22, 44, 102, 208, 252, 274
Phanariot aristocracy206
347
Preveziotou Cornilia220
Prince Islands205, 285
Racine202 n. 5
Ramiz Gke250
Refik Halid250
Rgie49, 52, 5556
Religious and Educational Society of
those from Malakopi the Orthodoxy
(Thriskeftiki ke Ekpedeftiki Adelfotita
Malakopiton I Orhtodoxia)212
Resimli Ay104, 174 n. 2
Rid (Rashd)299 n. 2
Rousseau, Jean Jacques284
Ruuk206
Sabiha Sertel104, 144
Saint Fotini (Hagia Fotini)202 n. 5
Salih Zeki Bey159
Salonika13 n. 26, 206
Samartzidou Euphrosyne208
Samos202 n. 5, 206
Sedad Simavi250
Selanik16, 4853, 5558, 6061, 343
Sharw (Hud)299 n. 3, 300 n. 5, 313
Shafik (Doria)299 n. 3, 304 n. 16
Simi206
Socialist Workers Federation of
Selanik56, 60
Socit anonyme207 n. 13
Society for the Female Education in
Constantinople (Syllogos Iper tis
Ginekeias Ekpedefseos)219
Strike13 n. 26, 51, 56 n. 34, 5758, 60
Sultan Abdlhamid87, 159 n. 18, 164
n. 33, 229
Sultan Mahmud II66
Ss90, 92, 174 n. 2, 175 n. 2, 185 nn. 10, 14
emsettin Sami160
inasi160, 232, 240
kfe Nihl [Baar]90, 9697, 105
kfezr88, 208
Takvim-i Vekayi68
Tanzimat86, 97, 133, 136, 156, 207, 228,
236, 328
Taylorism142143
Terakki47, 85 n. 1, 166, 208, 230
the Golden Horn68, 262
the Ottoman archives (Babakanlk
Osmanl Arivi, BOA)65, 67
the Society for the Employment of
Ottoman Muslim Women79, 262
n. 28
348
index
Tobacco Workers Welfare

Organization57
Topkap Palace67
Trabzon49, 50 n. 10, 138, 205
Tripoli110, 119, 157 n. 13, 308
Tsaghik34 n. 13, 4344
Tunis67
Turkey89, 18, 23, 51, 60, 61 n. 49, 66, 94
n. 29, 119, 126, 134, 137138, 140142, 144,
145 n. 49, 147148, 155, 167, 173, 175176,
290, 297298, 320321, 330331, 339, 342
Turkish Republic18, 133, 145, 147, 173,
233, 249, 332, 339, 341
Trk Kadn90, 92, 96
United States56, 89, 167, 173174, 242,
274, 283, 290
Vardovian, Hakob3940, 42 n. 51
Varna205
Vegleris210
Venice206
Victorian22, 135, 216, 286288, 290291,
294
Vienna69, 294, 340

Vlados M.210
Workshop4849, 5152, 54, 59, 68, 72,
211212
Yedi Kule38
Yeni nci90
Yorgacolu203
Young Ottomans133, 232
Young Turk23, 44, 89, 102, 201 n. 3,
249251, 262, 273, 291, 318
Zafer Hanm86
Zaghll (Safiyya)297, 332333
Zappas Constantinos219
Zappeion219
Zaydn (Jurj)297
Zeynep Hanm Mansion161
Ziyda (Mayy)299 n. 2, 308 n. 27
Ziya Gkalp101, 292 n. 29
Zografos X.210

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A Social History of Late Ottoman Women

The Ottoman Empire

Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil nalck and Boa Ergene

fikret adanir antonis anastasopoulos idris bostan

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/oeh

A Social History of Late

Duygu Kksal and Anastasia Falierou

To all the Women who Inspired Us...

Introduction: Historiography of Late Ottoman Women....................

Women as Economic Actors:

2. Searching for Womens Agency in the Tobacco Workshops:

3. Working from Home: Division of Labor among Female Workers

Education for Life: Schools, Associations,

5. Between Two Worlds: Education and Acculturation of Ottoman

6. Girls Institutes and the Rearrangement of the Public and the

Creating New Lives, Pushing the Boundaries:

Womanhood in Print Culture

Dilemmas of Nationalism: Debating Modernity,

13. The Tomboy and the Aristocrat: Nabawiyya Ms and

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

list of figures and tables

5.4.Cover page of Binbir Buse.................................................................. 183

Historiography of Late Ottoman Women

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

co-temporal history with women of Western geographies, responding to

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

Ottoman womens studies means bringing together questions raised by

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

formal Islamic precepts to highlight the varying nature of Islamic practices

9Carter Findley, An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe: Ahmed Midhat Meets Madame

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

and a passive, subordinated Orient. The colonizers hegemony is now

may be accommodated in Marxist/developmentalist, Islamist, or a more

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

v isibility of common, ordinary women in their everyday lives. Womens

Muslim women active in print culture and associational activities,17 which

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

1. the private sphere is not as private as it earlier appeared, and

20Peirce, The Imperial Harem; Melman, Womens Orients.

More recently, womens presence in the service and industrial sectors

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

study on the bread riots in Wilhelmine Germanyall show how women

30Mary P. Ryan, Gender and Public Access: Womens Politics in Nineteenth-century

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

and as a way of diffusing culture regardless of social class; it thus served as

Ottoman labor history are re-examined: the gender and ethno-religious

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

the European suffragettesbut was marked rather by a compromising

the private: by engaging with this liminal personality between childhood

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

of Hayriye Melek Hun. A member of the Circassian elite of the Manyas

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

duygu kksal and anastasia falierou

Keyder, alar. Memalik-i Osmaniyeden Avrupa Birliine. Istanbul: letiim, 2003.

Women as Economic Actors:

Theater as Career for Ottoman Armenian Women,

mercenary influences.3 When asked to specify types of jobs suitable for

theater as career for ottoman armenian women

12According to Zabel Yessayan (1878 Constantinople1942? Soviet Armenia), women

theater as career for ottoman armenian women

labor in Great Britain,17 create a sharp division between the household

Administrative districting determined womens labor in two further ways.

21Eldem, Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital, 152153.

(Ottoman Empire and It's Heritage) Duygu Köksal-A Social History of Late Ottoman Women-BRILL (2013)

(Ottoman Empire and It's Heritage) Duygu Köksal-A Social History of Late Ottoman Women-BRILL (2013)

2. Searching for Womens Agency in the Tobacco Workshops:

3. Working from Home: Division of Labor among Female Workers

5. Between Two Worlds: Education and Acculturation of Ottoman

6. Girls Institutes and the Rearrangement of the Public and the

13. The Tomboy and the Aristocrat: Nabawiyya Ms and

5.4.Cover page of Binbir Buse.................................................................. 183

1. the private sphere is not as private as it earlier appeared, and